Despite warnings. many civilians. refusing to leave their ancestral lands. have died from these bombings. Viet Cong terrorism and vicious brutality has. been. responsible forthe murder and execution of tens of thousands of civilians. Prior to the recent communist cities attackan attack that took place all over South Vietnamsome 2.200.000 South Vietnamese had registered as refugees since we began keeping* these figures in 1965. Countless more were qualified to be registered as refugees but had not done so. This is out of a total population. as I stated before. of some 15.000.000 people. It has been estimated that up to 500.000 additional refugees were created by the recent attack on the cities. The measures taken to deal with this enormous refugee problem have been completely inadequate. Those who live in the refugee camps exist under miserable conditions. Many live in the streets. We have given some $30-$35 million a year recently to South Vietnam for refugee relief. It has been estimated that no more than half of the supplies ever reach the refugee. Senator Ted Kennedy. Chairman of a Senate Committee on Refugees. after a recent trip to Vietnam. estimated that nearly 80 percent of the hundreds of refugees he spoke to in many different refugee camps. claimed they were either deposited in refugee camps by the Americans or fled to camps in fear of American planes and artillery. "Only a handful." Kennedy stated. "claimed they were driven from their homes by the Viet Cong." The recent Communist cities attack provided another example at Hue of what is tragically becoming the underlying theme throughout the entire country of South Vietnam. This theme perhaps was best illustrated by a U.S. Colonel who in describing the destruction of the City of Bentre. stated"We had to destroy the city in order to save it".
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Refugees refugee refugees