Rongelap refugees plead

nuclear contamination

More than 300 residents of Rongelap atoll, in the general area of the nuc lear test site atoll of Bikini, have been taken by a ship operated by the international en vironmental group, Greenpeace, to sanctu ary on the island of Mejato in the central Pacific 3700 km south west of Hawaii. But food supplies ran perilously low on Mejato and a supply ship had to be sent from the Marshall Islands to help them.

Leaders of the Rongelap community lately became alarmed at what they saw as the threat to the health of their children from ato mic radiation. U.S. offi cials said their fears were groundless and that the atoll was safe, with radiation levels low er than in many parts of the U.S., but the Ronge

lap people eventually appealed to Green peace to evacuate them.

Rongelap and its in habitants were exposed to radiation from an American nuclear test, code-named Bravo, ex ploded on Bikini on March 1, 1954. At the time they were evacu ated to Kwajalein atoll, 320 km to the south for decontamination. They were returned to Ronge lap after it was given an all-clear in 1957.

The Greenpeace ship, Rainbow Warrior was in the Marshall Is lands as part of a cam paign to raise the issue of nuclear contamina tion in the islands when the Rongelap commun ity asked for help.

The Marshalls gov ernment supply ship, Militobi, en route to

Rongelap, was then di verted to Mejato at the request of Rongelap senator, Jeton Anjain, a member of the Marshall Islands legislature. Mili tobi carried U.S. Gov ernment surplus food.

In the meantime sup plies on Mejato were so low that two speed boats were employed to take food and other sup plies to the atoll from Ebeye Island, about 130 km away at the other end of the huge Kwajalein atoll.

Greenpeace project director, Steve Sawyer, said that after the May 27 trip by Rainbow War rior when 45 Ronge lapese were moved, approximately three quarters of the popula tion, altong with the buil ding materials of their houses, would had been moved to Mejato.

Three young Rongalapese children photographed aboard the Greenpeace ship Rainbow Warrior on their way from their ancestral atoll to a new home on the atoll of Mejato in the Kwajalein lagoon. The nine-year old girl, Julie, sitting on the deck of the ship beside the heap of coconuts and a stack of building materials, is suffering from a radiation-related illness which 4-year old Freddy and 11-year old Sylvia seem to have escaped. AP Wirephoto