A few evenings ago I was sitting in the Shahabuddin Park, deep in thought. My hands were holding either side of my face when an elderly man came up and put his hand on my shoulder and asked me in a soft voice, "Excuse me dear sir, is everything alright?" Feeling a bit surprised and embarrassed, I said, "Thanks so much, I was remembering those days of in late 1971 when thousands of lives were lost not only because of lack of food but particularly because of the cold which was affecting the Bangladesh refugee camps of the north-eastern Indian states and the north of West Bengal."

Although we had been witnesses of the illness and death associated with cholera earlier in the year, seeing small children die for the lack of food and a blankets was, somehow, more distressing. At one inter-agency meeting in Calcutta in November that year, organizations working in the refugee camps estimated that, in the camps where those agencies were working, up to 5,000 babies and small children were dying each day.

Oxfam, for which I was working, had much earlier run a campaign appealing to the public in the United Kingdom to "Take a blanket off your bed" or "Buy yourself a new sweater for Christmas and throw your old one to Oxfam" The Post Office, in a rare gesture of support, did not charge postage for any parcels addressed to Oxfam.

Throughout October and November we had been buying warm clothing and locally woven blankets for the refugee camps and many Bengali families also handed over excess warm clothing and blankets including beautifully embroidered 'nokshi kantha'. Sometimes delivering these and other supplies by road was taking too long as the border roads were choked with military vehicles, and so we hired World War II vintage cargo planes, DC-3s and DC-6s to land at old World War II landing strips and the landing strip of the erstwhile Cooch Behar maharajah. On top of everything, the Pakistani forces had, in November, started sending shells over the Hili border and 17 shells hit an Oxfam assisted refugee camp and a nearby village.

In an attempt to make things even clearer to the reader, this is what the renowned Gandhian leader, the late Narayan Desai**, said at that time, "Going a little closer, you see a number of other problems. Thousands of women with just half a piece of cloth to wrap their bodies, thousands of children slowly succumbing to malnutrition, millions dreading the advent of winter winds along with pneumonia." Another relief worker, Pat Bennett, wrote, "You know how bright children normally are. Well, some of the children in the camps were just little lifeless bodies, hardly able to move in their mothers' arms, let alone smile."

In addition, the well-known Canadian journalist, the late Ernest Hillen, wrote in July that year in the Canadian 'Weekend Magazine', "Unprecedented numbers of people are suffering and dying, and the numbers are growing, there is widespread famine, and there is the real threat of war. The blame for the catastrophe rightly enough belongs to the men who run the West Pakistan Government. The shame belongs to all of us. Almost from the start, the world community could have stopped it. And it must be stopped now - by whatever manner or means. Our children will inherit enough shame."

It is so very sad to be able to say that what the late Ernest Hillen wrote in 1971 "the world community could have stopped it" rings so true when we consider the long-running Rohingya Refugee crisis, the pre-planned Israeli genocide in Gaza as well as the tragic Russian aggression in Ukraine. The world community is found wanting in most situations like these.

Be that as it may, if readers believe that they cannot help those suffering thousands of miles away, they should look around them and see that there are many desperately poor families who are finding it difficult to manage with the prices rises of the last one year or so. We should not need to wait for religious festivals to remind us to be generous towards those in need. They are suffering now, increasingly so as the weather will begin to get cooler soon. Therefore, please see how many smiles you can bring on to the faces, of young and old. Be kind and generous!

** (Recipient in 2012 of Bangladesh's 'Friends of Liberation War Honour')

Julian Francis has had an association with Bangladesh since 1971, and the Government of Bangladesh awarded him with "The Friends of Liberation War Honour" in 2012 in recognition of his role in the country's War of Liberation in 1971.