United Nations Secretary General Dag Hammarskjold was forced by an angry mob of thousands of Arab refugees in a camp in Jordan to beat a hasty retreat yesterday, the Daily Telegraph reported here today.
The Telegraph’s dispatch said that Mr. Hammarskjold visited the Akabat Jaber camp, near Jericho, in an attempt to establish “man to man” contact with the refugees. Upon his arrival, he was read a petition by a leader of the Moslem Brotherhood group in the camp, Mohamed Said, declaring that the refugees demanded repatriation and would accept no other alternative. The petition threatened a “peace march” into Israel to recover the lands and homes left when the Arabs quit Israel during the Arab states invasion in 1948.
In response, the Secretary General explained his difficulties as “a servant of all the members of the United Nations” and begged the refugees to “trust us, although we can work no miracles.” At this point several thousand young boys and old men broke out of the angry crowd of 45,000 persons and advanced on the Secretary General shouting: “We want to return to our country.” While Jordanian policemen attempted to hold the mob back by clubbing their legs, Mr. Hammarskjold hastily cancelled his tour of the camp and drove back to Amman, the Daily Telegraph reported.
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