Four Million Russian Children Need Food, Care, President Kalinin States

Russia is still in acute need of child relief work and the liquidation of many foreign agencies of their services will bring the Soviets face to face with any army of over five million children, either homeless or hungry or both.

A statement to this effect has been received by the Nansen Relief Mission here from M. Kalinin, president of the Executive Committee of the Soviet Republics.

According to Kalinin there are at present 4,000,000 homeless children and 1,500,000 minors whose parents are ruined peasants or unemployed workers, and who are unable to provide for them.

Of that number, 1,252,000 children are cared for in various institutions, 900,000 received partial feeding and 1,700,000 will receive food from foreign organizations up till July 15. There are, however, 1,648,000 who receive no aid of any kind, and after July 15, 3,348,000 children will be destitute and homeless, besides the 1,500,000 whose families are unable at present to care for them.

Further official reports received by the Nansen Relief Mission here reveal July and August as the two crucial months in the famine situation in Russia, especially in the Ukraine, the Crimea, the Bashkir and Kirghex Republics and the Dergachevsky and Pugachev districts of Samara. The 4½ poods per person set aside by the Central Famine Relief Committee out of last year’s harvest have already been used up, and with the harvest still two months off, the population of these regions are forced to eat food substitutes again, with a resulting high death rate. In the Ukraine, 50% of the population of the famine districts are without food, and the local committees of the Central Famine Relief Committee have appealed to the Central Committee to reduce all expenses of every kind and to rush food at once into the Ukraine and the Crimea to tide over the two months for which the food stock is insufficient.