British soldiers and sailors yesterday clubbed and tear gassed 750 visaless refugees who refused to disembark at Cyprus. The Jews, who were last week rescued from the tiny Dodecanese island of Sicini where they had been shipwrecked, refused to go to internment camps, maintaining they had been promised that they would go to Palestine.
A committee of Jews from the Caraolos internment camp and a representative of the Joint Distribution Committee, at the behest of the British authorities, tried to convince the visaless immigrants to land but failed. During the clash a party of sailors from a British warship anchored in Famagusta harbor was sent to reinforce the club-swinging troops. A number of Jews were reported to have been injured.
Meanwhile, in Jerusalem the Palestine Government announced that Colonial Secretary Arthur Creech-Jones had agreed to permit the women and children among the rescued Jews to enter Palestine to await future certificates. The men in the group will have to remain in Cyprus, the announcement said.
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