In November 1948 the organisation’s representatives reported a scene of devastation: in every village they visited, the able men had been imprisoned, leaving behind women and children without their traditional breadwinners and creating total disarray; crops were not harvested and were left to rot in the fields, and diseases were spreading in the rural areas at an alarming pace. The Red Cross reported malaria as being the main problem, but also found numerous cases of typhoid, rickets, diphtheria and scurvy.
