Milk for refugees – Press release

UNITED NATIONS

Department of Public Information

Press and Publications Bureau

Lake Success, New York

Press Release PAL/332

12 October 1948

AIR DELIVERY OF POWDERED MILK FOR PALESTINE REFUGEES

(The following was received at UN Headquarters from the UN Press Officer

in Haifa, through the UN in Paris.)

The first "air-milk-run" for Palestine refugees was completed this morning (October 12) when a white United Nations plane unloaded at the Jerusalem air port two thousand pounds of powdered milk which had been rushed there from Beirut.

At the airport the milk was immediately transferred to trucks to be shipped to Arab refugee camps in the Jerusalem area and in Jericho Ramallah where relief is most urgently needed.

This air delivery was an emergency operation jointly carried out by the UNICEF and the United Nations under a disaster relief project.  Dr. Pierre Descoeudres, Chief of the Mid-Eastern UNICEF Mission, personally accompanied the first "milk-run."

Dr. Descoeudres explained that fifty tons of UNICEF supplies, including powdered milk and other food, left Beirut this morning by rail for Amman where distribution to refugee children, nursing mothers, and pregnant women in the Jerusalem area and in Ramallah will be carried out by the Transjordan authorities.

He added that due to war conditions, rail transport was cumbersome and therefore, goods shipped by rail might not reach the refugees before a fortnight.

Today's plane delivery of powdered milk was made to fill the most urgent needs of the refugees in the interim period.

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