HC Deb 23 May 1890 vol 344 cc1687-8
MR. HOWORTH (Salford, S.)

I beg to ask the Under Secretary for Foreign Affairs whether he has received any information as to the appalling condition of the people at Suakin, Kassala, Berber, and elsewhere? Perhaps I may be allowed to read the following extracts from letters I have received:— You have no idea of the awful state the country is in. The population are actually starving, and the people are like living skeletons. The greatest misery is amongst the widows and children of the men we have killed, of whom there are over 100,000. Cannibalism has taken place; everything has been eaten; dogs, cats, rats, donkeys, snakes, lizards, old bones, and leather are eagerly devoured; and the stronger take by force from the weaker. I have seen a big boy seize a small one and try to strangle him for the food that was in his mouth. This is at Suakin. At Tokar things are worse. From 50 to 100 and sometimes more die daily. Kassala they say is still worse, whole families being found dead in their houses. At Gallabat and Gedair the population nearly cease to exist. At Berber, Shendy, and Metemmeh the same. At Halaib, Mahamed Ghoul, and Aghig the distress is also intense. I beg to ask the Under Secretary whether, considering our national responsibility, we ought not to be prepared to take further measures to alleviate the distress, or whether an official communication cannot be made to the Lord Mayor to call a meeting to consider this exceptional and dire distress?

* SIR J. FERGUSSON

The hon. Gentleman showed me the question as I came into the House. I answered a similar question a few days ago, and I then stated that the Government have every reason to believe that distress in the Soudan is extreme, principally owing to the failure of the crops in successive years—a failure that has produced a state of things with which the Government are unhappily acquainted in India when actual famine has occurred. Some of the figures of the hon. Member are, I think, exaggerated, but, notwithstanding, the Government are informed that there is extreme misery, and that many widows of persons killed in the war are in a state of destitution. The places in the interior are entirely beyond our jurisdiction or control. In the neighbourhood of Suakin the officials of the Egyptian Government are giving liberal supplies to the necessitous. The last account states that at the least 2,000 a day are being fed, and that the worst cases are being treated in the hospital. No doubt a great many deaths have occurred, and there is room for benevolence in the shape of relief; but, as regards the interior, it is not in the power of the British or of the Egyptian Government to give any relief.