পাতা:বাংলাদেশের স্বাধীনতা যুদ্ধ দলিলপত্র (ত্রয়োদশ খণ্ড).pdf/৪১২

384 বাংলাদেশের স্বাধীনতা যুদ্ধ দলিলপত্রঃ ত্রয়োদশ খন্ড শিরোনাম সূত্র তারিখ আমেরিকার জাতীয় প্রেস ক্লাবে সিনেটর প্রেস বিজ্ঞপ্তি ২৬ আগষ্ট, ১৯৭১ কেনেডীর বক্তৃতা FROM THE OFFICE OF SENATOR EDWARD M. KENNEDY OF MASSACHUSETTS Address by Senator Edward M. Kennedy to the National Press Club August 26, 1971 I am grateful for this chance to speak to the members of the National Press Club and to share with you my experiences during a week-long visit to the refugee camps of India... to a scene which only can be described as the most appalling tide of human misery in modern times. In just a few months, since early April, the civil war in East Bengal has driven nearly 8,000,000 men, women and children into India to escape conditions in their homeland. Unnumbered thousands of others have been slaughtered in the civil strife, or displaced within their country. Millions more in East Bengal face continued terror, disease and starvation, unless they receive immediate relief. This stark tragedy is not yet understood by the world. And although it has been a source of urgent concern to me and the Senate Subcommittee on Refugees from the outset, I can tell you that not until you see it first-hand can you begin to understand its immensity. For only by being there can you sense the feelings and understand the plight of the people, and the forces of violence which continue to create refugees and increase the toll of civilian casualties. In India I visited refugee areas along the entire border of East Bengal from Calcutta and West Bengal in the west... to the Jalpaiguri and Daijeeling districts in the north... to Agartala in the State of Tripura in the east. I listened to scores of refugees as they crowded into camps, struggling to survive in makeshift shelters in open fields or behind public buildings... or trudging down the roads of West Bengal from days and even weeks of desperate flight. Their faces and their stories etch a sage of shame which should overwhelm the moral sensitivities of people throughout the world. I found that conditions varied widely from one refugee camp to another. But many defy description. Those refugees who suffer most from the congestion, the lack of adequate supplies and the frightful conditions of sanitation are the very young... the children under five... and the very old. The estimates of their numbers run as high as fifty per cent of all the refugees. Many of these infants and aged already have died. And it is possible... as you pick your steps among others... to identify those who will be dead within hours, or whose sufferings surely will end in a matter of days. You see infants with their skin hanging loosely in folds from their tiny bones... lacking the strength even to lift their heads. You see children with legs and feet swollen