Manuagach, India, Aug 13—A nutrition expert accompanying Senator Edward Kennedy on his tour of refugee areas said today that hundreds of emaciated children were in danger of dying within days because of conditions at a large camp here.

Dr Nevin Scrimshaw, head of the Nutrition Department at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said that children who arrived in the camp in an exhausted and acutely undernourished condition had little chance of recovery.

Both Senator Kennedy and he were critical of a situation which Dr Scrimshaw described as the result of diet deficiencies, incompetent medical treatment and ignorance.

The situation was found when Senator Kennedy departed from an itinerary suggested by Indian Government officials during a two-day tour of refugee camps along the eastern and northern frontiers of East Pakistan.

It was one of the last stops on his tour of camps in his role as chairman of a Senate subcommittee on refugee affairs. He flew to Delhi this afternoon.

Mr Kennedy, Democratic Senator from Massachusetts, will remain in the Indian capital until Tuesday for talks with Indian officials.

When he arrived in Delhi Senator Kennedy said the refugee problem was “perhaps the greatest human tragedy of our times”.

After the discussions that he plans to have with Indian leaders, including Mrs Gandhi, the Prime Minister, the Senator said he hoped he would be able to recommend some ways in which the United States could help to relieve the suffering of the refugees.— UPI and Reuter.

Calcutta, Aug 13.—Hundreds of children are dying every day from malnutrition in the East Pakistan refugee camps in India, the coordinator of the Oxfam relief operation said here today.

Mr Julian Francis said the figures were based on reports and impressions from doctors and relief workers of other organizations as well as Oxfam.

“There is no doubt hundreds are dying every day”, he said. He could not say how long this had been going on but said it was “for some time”. He added: “The doctors think the malnutrition is worse than in Biafra.”

Mrs Gandhi has described the situation created by the East Pakistan, crisis as the nation's “greatest challenge since independence”.

“The Bangla Desh situation has produced all the consequences of war without the actuality of engaging in a war", she said in an interview published today in the annual number of the Delhi leftwing weekly Patriot.

Rawalpindi, Aug 13.—Mr Mehdi Masud, Pakistan's former Deputy High Commissioner in Calcutta, has returned here and accused India of segregation, persecution and harassment.

He arrived with Pakistan officials and their families and told reporters at the airport they had been subjected to persecution and harassment by the Indian Government unprecedented in diplomatic history.

India and Pakistan finally exchanged the staffs of their closed missions in Dacca and Calcutta yesterday after more than three months of wrangling over the repatriation.

In Karachi, President Yahya Khan said the East Bengal crisis had made Pakistan a “stronger and prouder nation”. Addressing the nation on National Day, the President said Pakistan was “a sacred trust”, and he was pledged to “preserve and defend” it. —
Diary, page 12