Congo tragedy

SIR,—As your readers will know from the reports in the daily press and on television, it is a far from happy New Year for hundreds of thousands of Africans in the famine-stricken Congo. Deaths are occurring (as I write) at the rate of 200 a day. "I saw mothers like living skeletons, with children lying blessedly iinconscious beside them," reports a British journalist.
The Oxford Committee for Famine Relief. a non-sectarian voluntary agency, has been able to act while official bodies have not been in a position to send funds. and has already cabled £10,000 to U.N. and Red Cross workers on the spot. But Oxfam is merely a channel for public generosity, and we can only send the additional help so urgently needed as the public responds to this challenge to Christian compassion. Donations, marked " Congo Relief "• may be sent to Oxfam, 17 Broad Street, Oxford.
Philip Barron (Press Officer. Oxford Committee for Famine Relief).