BANGAON.—Floods, disease, malnutrition and the stench of nightsoil floating around half-submerged tents has turned life in overcrowded refugee camps near the Indo-Pakistan border into a nightmare during the past two weeks.

Hundreds of newly established refugee camps have been swamped by floodwaters, which inundated large tracts of West Bengal during the monsoon season, and an estimated 1,500,000 of the 8,500,000 Bengali refugees are living in knee-deep water or in mud. As a result, sanitation in the flooded camps is nonexistent and cholera has broken out again, although in a milder form.

Officials estimate that 1,200,000 children in the camps are suffering from malnutrition, and the Administration, faced with the problem of assisting the 10 million Indians who have been affected by the floods, is at the end of its tether.

In terms of human misery and hopelessness, scenes on the road to the border towns of Bangaon and Hasnabad defy description. Conditions in the refugee camps were bad enough six weeks ago, but they were a paradise compared with the present situation.

Almost the entire district of Bangaon, which had accommodated 250,000 refugees, is under water, and for miles no land can be seen except for the thin, 20 ft. wide strip of the raised highway to Bangaon and the slightly higher embankment supporting the railway line.

Many of the refugee camps in the low-lying fields on each side of the road are either submerged by flood water or a sea of mud, slush and ankle-deep water. In one camp all that can be seen above the water is a few half-submerged tents — gifts from Britain.

Many camps are deserted and hundreds of thousands of displaced Bengalis have sought refuge on the roadside and the railway embankment. They can be seen huddling under small, flimsy shelters, which cover almost every yard on the road embankment for a distance of 10 miles.

With the water level still on the rise, most Bengalis have constructed pathetic platforms under their straw shelters, but in many areas the water is already beginning to lap over the road and into their shelter.

The entire road has been turned into an overcrowded refugee camp. As the driver hoots his way through the crowd, we see a woman nursing her dying husband a few feet from the rising water. Inquiries reveal that the man had been living in mud and water for 10 days and is dying of exposure.

A little farther up the road a woman is seen throwing the small body of a drowned child back into the swirling waters. A few hours later we wend our way back down the road through the crowds to find that the water has risen a few inches submerging slightly patches of the road. In some areas only the rooftops of huts and farmhouses appear above the water. Small naked children, with large heads, shrunken bodies and distended stomachs stare at us listlessly.

The tragedy is of such dimension that little or nothing can be done about it. Dr. B. Battacharyya, West Bengal's director for refugees and rehabilitation, has attempted to move some of the flooded refugee camps on to dry sites but there is just not enough high ground in the camps' immediate vicinity.

"We are already building a number of new camps in other areas but it will take weeks, if not months, to transport the large number of people to these sites. We can only hope that the water will recede." Dr. Battacharyya said.

His other big headache at the moment is the distribution of food. "We are not short of food. The Food Corporation of India has enough food and rice to feed the evacuees, but the major problem now is how to get food to them."

"In many areas the roads have been breached by flood waters and we just cannot get sufficient food to the camps. I have therefore, been forced to cut down on rations in many areas. When you consider that at least 1,300,000 evacuees have been affected by the floods you can understand the problem," the Bengali official added.

According to Dr. Battacharyya, the Indian Government has procured sufficient material to provide basic shelters for the refugees. The most urgent problem is malnutrition.

"An estimated 1,200,000 children are suffering from malnutrition and 50 percent of them are in very serious condition. What we desperately need are large quantities of vitamin pills and milk powder. I receive urgent requests for these commodities from my officers almost every hour."

He also pointed out that winter was approaching and the Government feared that a large number of refugees, who had nothing but the tattered clothes on their backs to protect them from the cold, would die of exposure unless India could procure at least three million blankets.

"Most of the children are stark naked and we will need large amounts of children's clothes if they are to survive the winter," Dr. Battacharyya added.
Bangla Desh resistance, page 6