Sabrum (on the Indo-Pakistan border in Tripura) May 18.
Thousands of terrified and impoverished Bengalis who have attempted to flee to India during the past fortnight have collapsed and died of exhaustion and starvation on the roadside.

Many others on the grim 75-mile march from the Chittagong district to the small Indian border state of Tripura are expected to meet with the same fate refugees told me today.

As many as 500,000 Muslim and Hindu refugees have already poured into the state of Tripura, and most of them crossed here at Sabrum, where the River Feni demarcates the Indo-Pakistan border.

Penniless, exhausted and in a stupor many of the refugees described the tragic flight from their homes in the Chittagong district, about 60 miles to the south.

Shamsuddin Ahmad, a farmer, aged 40, who has lost his wife and five children, fled Chittagong with his youngest daughter, three-year-old Rohina, when West Pakistani troops fired on his village. He said his wife was killed by a bullet as the family fled.

Speaking through a Bengali interpreter, he said: "I was separated from the rest of my family as we fled. I don't know what has happened to them. After searching for them I started to walk to the Indian border with Rohina.

"We had no food and no money. She collapsed after six days of walking. I carried her for a long time but she died in my arms. I buried her on the way. I have no one now".

The bewildered farmer said he saw hundreds of other refugees dying on the road. The stronger members of the families would huddle next to the exhausted and dying men, women and children. When they died, they buried them in nearby fields and marched on to India.

The tragic stones of many other refugees are similar. Mr. A. Z. B. Raha, a 48-year-old supervisor at Chittagong port, fled when Pakistani tanks moved in on his village, four miles from the centre of the city, last month.

"We started to walk north towards the Indian border. We saw people dying all along the way. Others were lying on the ground exhausted. The first to die were the babies, then further along the road the old and children collapsed, and then the women." he said.

We found Dr. Choudhury, a medical practitioner from Shulteepur village near Chittagong, among the 200,000 homeless migrants who have flocked into the southern districts of Tripura. He was in a stupor.

Dr. Choudhury claimed that he marched towards India in a daze after the army encircled his village and killed 19 members of his family last month. "There is nothing left." he said.

Dr. Rattin Datta, supervisor of the general hospital in the border town of Agartala. North of Sabrum, has so far treated 300 East Pakistanis who had bullet and shrapnel wounds.

"These people were lucky," he said. " Most of them live near the border and managed to get through to us for treatment. But I fear that thousands have died and are dying from their wounds, starvation and exhaustion on the road from Chittagong."

His 267-bed hospital is now overcrowded with an additional 300 wounded refugees. All the refugees claim they were deliberately shot by Pakistani troops.

Two sisters, Rohina Begum, aged 16, and Jinat Begum, aged five, have bullet wounds in their legs and arms. Rohina said her entire family was wiped out when Pakistani troops fired on their small boat as they attempted to cross the River Feni into India last week.

Dr. Datta asked: "What do I do with these children when I have to discharge them? They have no one." .
A railway engineer from the nearby junction of Akaura had a bullet wound on his head. He cannot believe what has happened. "Why should they shoot me? I have never been in politics and I I am an important, government servant. I told them this when they were looting my office and house. But a soldier said, ' Kill the bastard', and when they shot at me I fell to the ground and pretended to be dead.

"They burnt my house and all I have. What am I to do? I am 55 with a family of 10, and I have nothing now."

The road from Agartala is as tragic and sorrowful as the overcrowded refugee camps. With fixed stares and utter hopelessness written on their faces the frail Bengalis march northwards in search of shelter and food. The stream is never ending.

Schools and Government offices have been turned into huge dormitories but space is limited and most families are in the open. A great number of women and children have constructed pathetic grass huts.

Sanitation is non-existent, the heat is stifling and the stench is unbearable. Pools of stagnant water are seen everywhere and an epidemic could break out at any moment.