Population. Deaths. November 1901 117,974 2,807 December 1901 117,017 2,380 January 1902 114,376 1,805 February 1902 113,905 638 March 1902 111,508 402 April 1902 112,733 298 May 1902 116,572 196 CONSULAR REPORT ON THE CONCENTRATION CAMPS The following is the Report on the Concentration Camps by the Committee appointed by the Consular Corps of the Transvaal in response to a renewed appeal addressed to them by the Committee of Boer Women of Pretoria. The appeal was supported by three of the Consuls. The Committee, which you have appointed to examine the situation in the prisoners' camps, where Boer women are concentrated, though they could not always obtain the required accurate information, have gained sufficient results to arrive at the conclusions as laid down in short in the following report:-- I.--In order to formulate a clear idea of the situation the Committee has laid down the following tables: (a) Showing the population and deaths in the Camps during April 1901, compiled from the official reports of the Inspector-General of the Camps. (b) The death-rate in the Camps of the Transvaal calculated from Table A, as well as from reports published in the Official Gazette, and according to other trustworthy information. (c) The death-rate in the Camps at Bloemfontein and Kroonstad, compiled from the notices in the Official Gazette of the Orange Free State. (d) Diseases and deaths according to Official Gazette. II.--Although the returns are not complete through absence of returns for whole weeks in the official publications, we may arrive at the following conclusions: 1. That the death-percentage in the Camps surpasses all hitherto-known proportions. 2. That the death-rate amounts to 14 times that of Pretoria, which has, according to Dr. Stroud, an average of 25 per thousand per year. 3. That the death-rate among the children confined to the Camps has increased to an alarming extent. The Committee, basing their verdict partly on the repeated assertions of public opinion, on the communications of eye-witnesses, on the evidence given by certain witnesses in a case before the Military Court at Pretoria, and finally on the personal observations of four members of the Consular Corps, to whom permission was granted to visit the Camp at Irene, feel compelled to believe the principal causes of diseases, carrying in their train such an abnormal death-rate, to be: 1. The difficulties and misery and privations to which the Boer families are subject after having been driven from their farms (their journeys often lasting about 20 days).