News Brief

Reports from informed sources in Paris said tonight ##that the 4,500 Exodus refugees now en route to France on three British transports ##will probably arrive in Port de Bouc, a small town 30 miles northwest of Marseille, either Monday or Tuesday.

There was no explanation as to why the voyage from Haifa would take 10 or 11 days, nor why the deportation ships would not dock at Ville Franche, which was reportedly their original destination.

Dozens of Jewish Agency representatives have been stationed in all ports between Ville Franche and Sete. They are patrolling the coast on a 24-hour basis, using planes and boats to supplement watchers on shore.

Agency observers report that as of this evening no prefecture along the coast had received word from Paris concerning the ships’ whereabouts, nor instructions to prepare for their arrival. Two French destroyers have left Toulon presumably to rendezvous somewhere in the Mediterranean with the three British warships convoying the ships. A radar ship is watching out for the convoy and special telephone lines have been installed to aid the police at points along the shore where communications facilities are limited.

The Agency representatives in Nice, who were in Sete when the Exodus left on July 11, told the J.T.A. that there are at least 600 women in advanced stages of pregnancy among the 4,500 and several hundred children. They anticipate that urgent medical aid will be required as a result of the rigors of the voyages to and from Palestine. The Agency aides are apprehensive that there will be mass violence if the British crews attempt to forcibly disembark the deportees.

Meanwhile, throngs of curiosity seekers from Riviera resorts were streaming into Ville Franche by cars, busses and trains. Crowds were reported converging on other ports which have been mentioned as possible destinations of the refugees.