বাংলাদেশের স্বাধীনতা যুদ্ধ দলিলপত্রঃ ত্রয়োদশ খণ্ড
Trevor Huddleston, Bishop Of Stepney
I have stood on the frontier between India and Pakistan. I have seen the flood of human suffering at full tide flowing over into the already crowded villages of Bengal. I have seen the camps and the efforts being made there to bring relief.
The enemy is TIME For God's sake get the world aware of its responsibility to humanity quickly. Only a massive swift magnanimous response can be effective. Delay must mean death to millions of our brethren.
Mathew Salisbury, United Relief Service
Eight million refugees and more coming. Then floods rendering areas of West Bengal inaccessible by road for nearly two months: then a typhoon ripping apart the “homes" of flood victims and evacuees.
I have to walk ahead of a Land-Rover, removing from the middle of the road those few meagre possessions salvaged from the flood, because the only dry space for shelter was the road itself. Tube-wells were often sub-merged; floods were the only drinking water, adding further to the death roll.
Governments abroad may not be able to ease the administrative burden, but at least they can mitigate the effects of the financial load. But even the colossal aid to India which world governments could mobilize can only buy time. It cannot build here, where there is no community to build on. For Government, relief workers and evacuees, the only end can be a political solution which will give security to the evacuees-inside East Bengal.
Both massive increased aid and solution are vital to India. There is a limit to her endurance.
Julian Francis, UNA Volunteer, Bihar
There are no walls to keep the rain from blowing in, nor any partitions except lines of washing to separate one family from the next. The thatched roof seems to sweat smoke, but just as the smoke drifts out the rain comes in at every pore, and the mud floor which is their bed gets damp and slimy,
Regularly each hut disgorges a hundred refugees or more who form queues for their government rations, queues for the wells, queues for a place at the trench latrines. Those with dysentery seldom make it to the queue. The children form lines for their daily dollop of special nutritious food.
This is the totality of life for nine million refugees-there is no work, there is no money. They knew what they were coming to. They knew, that despite everything, it was better than what they were leaving, for here there is a chance of physical survival.
We shall go on trying to help them survive here. Please do not give up at your end. But above all, please push, press and persuade everyone with influence until the refugees are
