Brian Urquhart, United Nations Undersecretary General for political affairs, said today that UN observers stationed in Beirut obtained the first indication about the massacre of Palestinians in the two refugee camps at 8:30 a.m. Friday, last week. It was the first time that a UN official gave such an early date for knowing about the massacre. There are only 10 UN observers in Beirut.
According to Urquhart, some of the observers saw “some of the corpses” of the massacred Palestinians as early as Friday morning. When asked why the information was not passed on by the observers immediately to UN headquarters in New York, or to the press, Urquhart blamed difficulties in transatlantic communication.
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