Indochina: A Generation of Refugees

THE abbreviated Teletype messages dribble endlessly into offices in Saigon, printing out the cold statistics of blood and violence. At times the tempo is feverish, at times sluggish:

22 APRIL 71 2300 HRS. TAN LONG HAMLET, NHON AN VILLAGE, AN NHON DISTRICT. UNKNOWN NO. VC (VIET CONG) INFILTRATED HAMLET, KILLED TWO CIV AND KIDNAPED THE HAMLET CHIEF AND HIS WIFE.

24 APRIL 71 0400 HRS. CAI SON AGROVILLE, PHONG PHU VILLAGE, BINH DINH DISTRICT. VC ATTACKED RECEPTION CENTER OF REFUGEES FROM CAMBODIA. KILLING 3 CADRES. 4 ARVN. WOUNDING 3 CADRES AND 10 REFUGEES.

SAIGON, MAY 1 (AP)—US B-52 BOMBERS FLEW MISSIONS IN SOUTH VIET NAM'S NORTHERN SECTOR FOR THE THIRD STRAIGHT DAY, AIMING BOMB DROPS AT DIRT ROADS AND TRAILS USED BY THE ENEMY. FOUR FLIGHTS OF THE EIGHT-ENGINE JETS, A TOTAL OF 12 PLANES, UNLOADED 360 TONS OF EXPLOSIVES . . .

These relentless bulletins are part of a chronicle of immense human suffering caused, with a hammer-and-anvil effect, by both Viet Cong terrorism and U.S. firepower. The victim of that disaster is the civilian population, all too easily overlooked amid the concern for American and South Vietnamese military casualties. In the process, millions of civilians, the innocent and largely silent victims, have been killed, injured or rendered homeless. In South Viet Nam alone, there have been an estimated 1,050,000 civilian casualties, including 325,000 dead, since 1965. Reliable figures on civilian losses are not available for Cambodia, but it is estimated that 10,000 Laotian civilians have been killed and 20,000 injured since the heavy air war over Laos began in early 1969.

Of the survivors, vast numbers displaced by the terror and the bombs have moved to special camps or have taken refuge in the filthy shantytowns of cardboard and corrugated tin that embrace the outskirts of all the major cities. A few find ways to earn a little money, although jobs are harder to find now that the G.I.s are leaving Viet Nam. Most are merely waiting for the chance to go home.

The war's most ubiquitous—and most poignant—victims are the children (see color pages). Some are orphaned, some maimed, some merely lost. Only 50% attend the first three grades in school. A professor at Saigon University remarks, "When I was growing up, the rice fields were full of herons and cranes. These are things I can never show my children."Denied their traditional birthright, many of Viet Nam's youngsters are spending their childhood cooped up in cities that have become seemingly permanent bomb shelters.

Rise of Urbanization. Nobody knows for certain how many refugees there are, but it is generally believed that about one-third of the 27 million people who live in Indochina have been driven from their homes.

> In South Viet Nam, according to Senator Edward Kennedy's Judiciary Subcommittee on Refugees, which has been investigating the problem since 1965, the total number of refugees has reached 6,000,000.