The Cyprus deportation ferries Empire Rest and Empire Comfort sailed from here this morning with 800 of the 1,500 Jewish refugees who docked here last night aboard the Redemption, formerly the Paducah. The remaining 700 will be kept aboard their blockade runner until other arrangements are made to take them to Cyprus.
Hours after the departure of the Cyprus-bound immigrants, the second refugee transport, the Jewish State, arrived in the port in tow to a British destroyer. When informed over loudspeakers that they would be transshipped to Cyprus, the 2,000 passengers shouted: “No.” They also refused to send five representative ashore to arrange for food and water, as they had been invited to do. They will remain aboard the immigrant ship until tomorrow.
Shortly after the Jewish State was brought to the dock, a man pushed to the rail with the body of a two-month-old infant and cried: “Tear gas killed my child.” The baby died when tear gas shells were fired at the vessel to make certain that the boarding party would meet no resistance.
By contrast, the disembarkation of the Redemption passengers in the early morning proceeded quietly, after they had been assured over a public address system from the docks that they were to be sent to Cyprus. Earlier, the British had indicated that they would send the Jews back to their ports of embarkation in Rumania and Bulgaria.
The Jewish Agency later sent representatives aboard the ships and provided bread, milk and fresh fruit. Seventeen persons came off the Redemption to be hospitalized.
New reports here placed five blockade runners in various parts of the Mediterranean bound for the Palestine coast. Yesterday the British announced that they had discovered two ships in the Mediterranean and Black Seas which they believed would be used as blockade runners.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
