With the coming of the first heavy rains in Cyprus, 1,200 Jewish parents here today petitioned Rabbi A. Schreibaum, representative of the Jewish Agency, to bring to the immediate attention of the British authorities on the island the condition of Jewish infants in the Cypriot camps.
Six hundred babies under six months of age are presently in the Xylotymbou camp, while 400 more children are due to be born within the next two months. Rabbi Schreibaum said today that the discontinuation of infant quotas to Palestine–which were granted by the former Palestine High Commissioner. Sir Alan Cunningham, on humanitarian grounds–is the most serious problem encountered in administering the camps on Cyprus, where a total of 11,200 Jews are still detained.
The Jewish Agency representative asserted that 60 percent of the babies living in the Cyprus internment camps do not have cribs, while their chief source of nourishment comes from canned, dehydrated potatoes. The Nissen buts in which most of them live, Rabbi Schreibaum said, have no source of heat whatsoever and it is impossible to provide the infants with proper bathing facilities.
Joint Distribution Committee physicians on the island are now preparing a medical report on conditions among the detained Jews here, which will be submitted within a few days to Sir Godfrey Collins, commissioner for the DP camps.
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