To begin with, the most pressing need called for food and medical aid. We, therefore, sent doctors and nurses and medical supplies to Adana and provisions, or cash wherewith to buy food, to various stricken centers, such as Adana, Tarsus, Alexandretta, Kessab, Antioch, and Marash. Kessab we also supplied with implements and tools of various kinds, as the village was utterly looted before being destroyed, and practically nothing but ruins was left of it. At Aintab and Beirut we have provided clothing, shoes, and bedding for some destitute orphans.
RED CROSS SUPPLIES, INCLUDING PLOWS, PICKS AND OTHER TOOLS, BEING TAKEN TO THE STEAMER SAILING FOR KESSAB.
Fortunately, in many districts the crops were saved. The food problem, except at certain points, including Kessab, which is not an agricultural village, will therefore be deprived of its worst terrors until the winter sets in. There has been and still is a general demand for clothing, quilts, and blankets, especially from the mountainous regions between Latakia and Marash. We shall hear more about the need of clothing and bedding and shelter as the season advances and the cold November rains begin beating down upon the mountains. Kitchen utensils are urgently wanted in many districts in which the marauders carried off everything portable.
But while the initial and most palpable suffering and destitution may be said to have been provisionally checked, and while preliminary steps are being discussed with a view to establishing orphanages and asylums for the fatherless and factories in which to give the widows employment, we feel that the real pinch is yet to come. After careful investigation, we are satisfied that relief on an extensive scale will have to be furnished for months to come, and that the coming winter will to the utmost tax the capacity of all the relief agencies at work, even if the funds at their disposal are very materially increased beyond the present ratio of contribution.
ITALIAN S. S. “ORIONE” FLYING RED CROSS FLAG, LEAVING BEIRUT FOR LATAKIA.
Confronted with so many unsolved problems of relief and of rehabilitation and feeling that some 25,000 destitute fellow-beings in the district between Marash and Latakia are looking toward this Committee for help, both for the present and during the approaching season of inclement weather, we are in duty bound to persevere.
As late as July 8, Rev. Kennedy reported from Alexandretta:
“Nothing has been done in the district so far to reinstate the refugees in their homes. They have been ordered back to their villages repeatedly, and even threatened if they did not obey, but they say they can not go back as long as they have no houses to return to. What the outcome will be I can not predict. To rebuild 746 houses, even though many of them are little better than huts, is no small thing.”