Basarat, West Bengal, May 30.
As gaunt refugees from East Pakistan began to die of starvation near the Indo-Pakistan border over the weekend a column of hungry and homeless people began to march to Calcutta, which is already the most impoverished and overcrowded city in the world.

With tired children clinging to parents' backs and with their few belongings on their heads, the poorest of the poor marched on relentlessly and silently throughout the day. They moved westward from Basarat towards Calcutta and the hope of jobs and shelter.

The long march began on Friday night after it became apparent that the government relief centres near the border can provide food and shelter for only about half of the four million refugees who have crossed the border.

But Calcutta's pavements are already packed with homeless people. Unemployment is at a peak and, after a hurried meeting, local government officials decided yesterday to prevent the refugees from entering the city, at all costs.

Policemen at road blocks two miles north of Dumdum airport began to turn the refugees back along the road yesterday morning; by the afternoon about 30,000 were settled in a hastily erected camp on the perimeter of the airport. Police officials said the refugees would not be allowed beyond the outskirts of the city.

They admitted, however, that it would be impossible to prevent East Bengalis from entering the city at night by by-ways and side-lanes.

As the human column continued to march westwards throughout the weekend police officers in the overcrowded border areas, 50 miles to the east, confirmed reports that refugees who had not been able to reach government relief centres were beginning to die of starvation.

From the banks of the Ichamati river, on India's eastern border, I was shown 20 bodies floating down the river. An officer of the border security force told me that most of the bodies in the river belonged to refugees who had died of starvation. "We have seen hundreds." he said. "Their relatives don't have the means to bury or cremate them so they throw them in the river."

The banks of the river. which is just inside Indian territory, are crowded with the refugees. Some are waiting hopefully for their relatives to cross the river when Pakistan patrols move away.

Others are just too weak to move. Most of them have nothing but a small hand pack. There are no shelters and they crouch or huddle in the rain like frightened animals in the wilderness.

Every form of shelter, trees, bushes and overhanging rocks. have been occupied by women, children and the old. A grey-haired and toothless farmer, who has been separated from his family, sits in the rain alone, staring back towards Pakistan. He has no one to fend for him. He is one of four million and it is each man for himself and his own family.

Two frightened waifs, about six years old, wander aimlessly through the thousands of uprooted people. searching for their parents. "They will probably die soon ", says the tired relief agency volunteer.

As we drive towards the border village of Taki among the never-ending stream of haunted eyes I see an old man, with tears streaming down his face, turn back towards the river with a dead child in his arms.

The population of Taki, a small place near Hasnabad on the border, was once estimated at 3,000. It has now swollen to 8,000, but most of the refugees will eventually move westwards towards the overcrowded refugee camps. Then, in desperation, they will join the long grim march towards Calcutta.

A medical volunteer, Dr. S. K. Sen, is in charge of the relief centre in Taki. He shrugs his shoulders hopelessly and points out of the window towards the thousands of squatting refugees.

"We cannot cope any longer". he says. "Most of the children are suffering from malnutrition. Some are too weak to move. Cholera has already broken out and many people are suffering from gastro-enteritis.

“There is no shelter and if this goes on for another week or so hundreds of thousands of people are going to die from starvation, exposure and illness. It has already started."

Dr. Sen says that the Government has done a fantastic job, but the official and voluntary relief agencies have been overwhelmed by the influx. "In this area we have only been able to give shelter and food to about one-third of the people. The rest are in the open. But even the lucky ones have been living on rice and salt alone for weeks and their resistance is low. We urgently need food, tents, and medicines."

One finds the same pathetic story throughout the district, from Hasnabad and Taki in the south up to Bongaon, the main border checkpoint about 50 miles northeast of Calcutta.

Seventy thousand refugees have crossed into the Bongaon district during the past 48 hours, but the refugee camps are bursting with humanity and they will have to fend for themselves in the meantime.

As we drive northwards from Basirhat to the village of Gobardange, off the main roads, the monsoon rains begin to fall on the stream of refugees. Some huddle under thin reed-bedding mats, their only possession. Others, with water streaming down their faces. march on with fixed stares.

We pass a weeping woman. She squats in the rain with a dead baby in her arms. An ancient couple, bent double with age, hobble along. An old woman sinks slowly to the ground and stares grimly ahead at the fields which are already beginning to flood with monsoon rains.

And the stream of displaced people never ends. During the five-hour visit we estimated that we saw about 400,000 refugees. And we have only travelled along 30 miles of the 1,300-mile border.