Evening star., 1942-12-02
100000 Chinese
Trek Out Of Drouuhf
And Flood Sectors
Thrones Move Westward
To Escape Threat Of
Fumine in Honun
BY A. T. STEELE,


Foreign CORRESPONDENT of The Star and
Chicago Daily News.
PAOCHI, Northwest China, Dec. q.
This remote region of China has
seen many refugees come and go,
but none more pitiful than the
weary, ragged, hungry legions who
are moving in from the famine re-
gion of the Yellow River Valley.
American and Chinese relief agen-
cies, who are doing what little they
can to contend with the overwhelm-
ingly difficult problem, estimate that
100000 Chinese are affected by the
twin scourges of drought and flood
OF these it is believed that 100000
are on the move.
During the last few days I have
seen many hundreds of these un-
fortunate folk-mostly from Honan
Province-trudging along the roads
or trying to exc out an existence in
the squalid encampments outside
the bigger towns.
The heart of the famine area lies
athwart the Sino-Japanese front in
Central Honan, but it is an inter-
esting fact that despite their acute
distress the majority of the victims
of this natural calamity are choos-
ing to move westward into Free
China rather than eastward into
areas of Jap domination. They are
strung all along several hundred
miles of roads and railways between
Chingchow, in Honan Province, and
this railway terminus, deep in the
Chinese northwest.
Railways Give Transportation.
The railway is providing free
transportation but thousands have
walked the entire distance pushing
wheelbarrows loaded down with
babies, chickens and personal
belongings salvaged from abandoned
homes. These wheelbarrows are
their most precious possessions.
With them they are able to pick up
odd haulage jobs at stopping places
along the route.
The vanguard of the weary pro-
cession is now penetrating the arid
frontier province of Kansu, in their
search for food and work.
At Sian, Midway, on the long
road, I visited big refugee encamp-
ments where hundreds of famine
fugitives were barely supporting
themselves under the plan of work
relief financed by the contributions
of American churches. dispensed
through the American Advisory
Committee. The American money
is employed to purchase old
fashioned spinning wheels and raw
cotton with which refugee women
are spinning yarn. From the pro-
ceeds they are supplementing the
meager earnings of other members
of the family from odd jobs and
begging.
1t is an incredible sight-these
tattered women sitting at their
wheels in front of their mud shelters
and caves busily helping produce
what is one of wartime China's big
gest needs, yarn for gowns and uni
forms. Because of the limited num-
ber of cotton mills in China home
spun yarn is easily marketable.
Tens of Thousands Face Death.
The American Advisory Committe
has expended $250,000 in direct relief
in the famine region and another
$4,000 in Sian. Chinese agencies
have appropriated bigger sums. But
the problem Is still immense. Tens
of thousands will die this winter un-
less more help is forthcoming.
Jack Hunter, Chicagoan, who
Is directing the American church re-
lief in Sian, said numbers of Honan
wanderers already had died of ex-
haustion and exposure on their trek
westward and that the care of
abandoned children was becoming
a serious matter. In some cases the
desperate parents were attempting
to sell or give away their starving
children. The problem is expected
to reach the most acute stage in
January, February and March. BY
then freezing weather and malnutri-
tion are certain to reap a heavy crop
Of human lives and the majority of
the evacuees will have disposed of
most of their salable possessions for
food.
The refugees are of three kinds
those from the drought area of CEN
trail Honan where the summer crop
was an almost complete failure,
those from the flooded Fukow dis
trict In Northern Honan where a
breakage in the Yellow River dikes
inundated an entire county and
those from the Tall district on the