From Our Correspondent
Geneva, July 7
More than £833,000 a day is required from the international community to feed and shelter the East Pakistan refugees in India, the office of the United Nanons High Commissioner for Refugees said today. This estimate is a conservative one, based on the figure of six million refugees, which has already been substantially exceeded.
For a six-month period from June 1 some £166m will be required according to the latest Indian Government assessment.
International aid to date, from all sources, in cash and kind, amounts to about £69m, the United States being the largest single contributor.
The High Commissioner has issued these figures in putting out a new appeal for further government contributions. It said that until now food for the refugees had come from buffer stocks maintained by the Indian Government and these were “now pretty low”.
It was a race against time on the logistical side, but they were “fairly confident that a hunger gap can be prevented”. Of 580,000 tons of rice needed for the six-month period, about 100,000 tons were now in the pipeline under arrangements made by the world food programme.
Other needs included 124,000 tons of pulses, 24,000 tons of edible oils, tents for four million people, 480 Jeeps, 768 (five-ton) lorries, hospitals for 12,000 beds and 120 ambulances.
The United Nations Children's Fund has sent in 13 plane loads of food and medicines over the past two weeks. It has also supplied jeeps and lorries and is financing a sanitation programme in the refugee camps.
Last month, the World Health Organization sent 100 tons of medical supplies to India, most of the weight being rehydration fluid for cholera victims.