Disembarkation of 1,300 visaless Jews deported from Palestine was completed this afternoon and the two vessels which brought them to Cyprus sailed, presumably en route back to Palestine to pick up another load of deportees. The cruiser Ajax, which escorted the vessels here, is reported standing by for other escort missions.
The debarkation of the refugees began at dawn this morning with stretcher cases being the first to come ashore. Several persons were immediately taken to hospitals. Among those was a woman with a new-born baby. (The United Press reported that two children among the deportees had died.)
Rigid security precautions kept correspondents away from the camp area, to where the refugees were taken, and trucks carrying batches of ten deportees were escorted from the docks to the camp by jeeps, as Bren gun carriers lined the road.
As some of the younger immigrants were being taken from the two transports in landing craft, they shouted: “Palestine not Cyprus. We want Palestine.”
JTA has documented Jewish history in real-time for over a century. Keep our journalism strong by joining us in supporting independent, award-winning reporting.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
