Palestine question – UN medical experts visit refugee camps – Press release

UNITED NATIONS

Department of Public Information

Press and Publications Bureau

Lake Success, New York

Press Release PAL/286

14 September 1948

UN MEDICAL EXPERTS VISIT REFUGEE CAMPS

The following was received today at UN Headquarters from the UN Press Officer in Haifa.)

Two medical experts returned to Beirut today (14 September) after surveying, on behalf of the United Nations, six camps containing about 100,000 Palestine refugees.  The experts are Doctor Hans Mooser, professor of preventative medicine at Zurich University, who was retained by the World Health Organization, and Doctor Arne Barkhuus, health survey specialist on the staff of the Trusteeship Department.

The biggest camp they visited was located at Gaza and contained some 40,000 persons, mostly women and children.  Two other camps were in the Gaza vicinity; the fourth camp, at Elkan Tara, near the Suez Canal; the fifth, at Hebron, and the sixth, at Bethlehem.

In the Hebron and Bethlehem camps, the doctors found 75 percent of the inmates without shelter, sleeping in the open air.  Health conditions were generally found to be satisfactory, but the doctors said that more food and medical supplies were needed.  Blankets will be needed soon in view of the of the start of the cool rainy period.

The doctors are now  preparing a detailed report for submission to the United Nations refugee aid center at Beirut.

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