Social_Welfare_Annual_Report_1948-1954 — Page 31

arrived in Hong Kong. Most of them were at first accommo- dated in a specially erected temporary camp at Chatham Road; the China Fleet Club and the Mission to Seamen agreed to receive mothers with very young children, the aged, and the convalescent; Government hospitals received the sick. The Social Welfare Office took over from the Police the responsi- bility for these evacuees, and was fortunate in being able to delegate practically all the field work to an experienced and efficient Salvation Army team. The second wave of evacuees in October 1949 was much smaller and the Social Welfare Office undertook full responsibility for their reception and care in Hong Kong, and for trans-shipping those who had elsewhere to go.

During the same month an extra hut was built at North Point Camp for the residue of these homeless evacuees.

55. In November 1949 a group of 148 alleged Nationalist soldiers and their refugee families were directed to the Tung Wah Hospital for shelter. The numbers grew. Government agreed to reimburse the Tung Wah Hospital the cost of feeding them. By March 1950 the total number of registered admis- sions was nearly 5,000, but over 3,000 had been repatriated to Taiwan or, with their consent, to the Chinese Mainland. But other refugees had been putting up squatter shacks in and around the Hospital's grounds, and in nearby streets. They created an alarming health and fire menacé. On the 28th March, 1950, 4,000 of them were removed in a combined Social Welfare Office - Police operation to the ruined Jubilee Fort at Mount Davis, where a temporary camp was organized and meals provided by the Tung Wah Hospital and the Social Welfare Office. By mid-April the numbers had swollen to over 5,000, from all parts of China and Mongolia, and included 120 blind as well as a large number of cripples. The Camp was strongly Nationalist. Local residents began to complain about the manners and habits of straying inmates, and at the end of June, 1950, this temporary camp was closed and 6,800 inmates were transferred to the abandoned Rennie's Mill, on the shores of Junk Bay, and two miles from the nearest road or village. The remainder dispersed. The move was another successful

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