Evening star., 1939-01-28
BULLETIN,

PARIS, Jan. % (P.-Circles
close to the French government
reported today that Pope Plus has
sent an appeal to Insurgent Gen.
eralissimo Francisco Franco to
adopt a policy of clemency in re-
gard to refugees from government
Spain who may fall into his
hands. The Pope also was said to
have urged Gen. Franco to make
some declaration ENCOURAGING
refugees who have fled into France
to return to their homes in Spain.
BY the Associated Press.
LIE PERTHUS, France cat the
Spanish Frontier. Jan. 28.-Be-
tween 1000 and 5000 French troops
were rushed to the Spanish border
today as tragic horde of refugees
from governmental Catalonia poured
into France.
The refugees, fleeing the insur-
gent armies, who rapidly drove
northward from Barcelona, started
crossing the border at 8 am. and
within an hour 5000 had jammed
across the line, completely swamp
ing French guards.
Raoul Didkowski, prefect of the
border department, told higher off,
clals he was unable to carry out
their orders to let only women, chill
dren and old men in unless troops
were ordered to use their guns, if
necessary, to keep out younger men.
OF the first 5000 who came
through LIE Perthus Pass when the
refugee flood gates We're opened only
few hundred, however, were men
OF fighting age.
Senegalese Troops Sent.
Several hundred Senegalese troops
of the oath Regiment in Perpignan
were the first to reach LIE Perthus.
The prefect who came to take per-
sonal command of the frontier post
sent these troops to keep order in
the mile long circuitous road around
which the refugees were routed for
S&dSO1lSotlOll dIlO tdIIllldllOll.
French officers said about five
battalions of other troops were
rushed to Cerbere, LIE Perthus and
Bourg- Madame. three gateways
through the Pyrenees Mountains.
They came from Perpignan, Tou-
louise, Marbonne and Montpelier.
Several squadrons of motorized
dragons were sent from Limoges to
take charge of the Boulou railroad
station. From Boulou, the nearest
railroad point to LIE PerthuS, the
first train filled with refugees left
within a half hour after the from
tier was opened. All the refugees
were routed to concentration camps
outside the border departments.
They poured in both by land and
sea. Scores of fishing boats, in
Guiding several armed government
trawlers, came into Port Vendres
after dawn this morning. Aboard
them was a mixture of refugees and
deserters from Catalonian ports.
Some left these ports before Bar
celona fell, but only arrived in
France this morning.
The French destroyers La Rail-
leuse and LIE Fortune, with many
small navy speedboats, took the in
coming refugee boats under convoy
into Port Vendres as they reached
the haYbor.
At Cerbere several thousand refu-
gees moved up along the mountain
road from Port Bou on the Spanish
side of the border to the post over
looking the sea where French troops
and guards passed them into France.
At Bourg- g-Madame, Western gate
way for Catalonia, French authori-
ties had check in hundreds this
morning and prepared to receive
thousands more before sundown.
Worried About Troops.
Their main worry was that sew
eral thousand troops in the Spanish
government army at SEQ de Urgel
might come through Puigcerda and
demand to cross into France. These
troops have been almost cut off from
their comrades for several days.
LIE Perthus, however, bore the
main shock of the refugee flood.
Refugees and officials from Spain
said the road from Figueras to the
frontier was jammed with a con-
stantly moving stream of Spanish
civilians from Corona and other
points behind the battered, retreat
ing government army
Field kitchens and food supply
depots, set up behind French from
tier barriers by international refu-
gee organizations, were swamped by
the half-Starved throng.
One woman who sat weeping on a
stretche. beside canteen held a
bar of chocolate in her hand and
appeared too tired and sick to eat it.
A friend who accompanied her
carried the weeping woman's 3-day-
old baby, born by the roadside on
the flight northward from Figueras