MASSACRE OF SERBS.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 61, Issue 185, 20 May 1941, Page 5

MASSACRE OF SERBS.

TOTAL OF 59,090 VICTIMS.

THOUSANDS OF EXPULSIONS.

LONDON, May 19

Germans, Hungarians, and _ Bulgarians in. Yugoslavia arc competing in a cold-blooded massacre aiming at tho extermination of the Serbs, says the Istanbul correspondent of “The Times.”

Since the. invasion it is conservatively estimated that there have been' 50,000 victims of mass executions.

At Vrsne, a priest and 29 others wore hanged, and at Alibunar a professor and 70 students were shot.

The correspondent says that this is typical of happenings in practically every Serbian town and village. Priests are a special object of the invaders’ hatred. The Patriarch Oavrilo was—brought to Belgrade. His clerical robes were removed and lie was confined in his underclothes on the ground 1 floor of a building whom he was in view of passers-by. Eighty thousand Serbs have been expelled from territory which has now been allocated to Hungary. Thousands more have been expelled from Serbia and 'Macedonia by the Bulgarians. Husbands are separated from wives and mothers from children. • .

In spite of this deliberate attempt at extermination, the Serbs maintain their offensive spirit. Between 50,000 and 00,000 Serbs commanded by officers of the Yugoslav Army, eontinuo guerrilla warfare in the mountains of Bosnia-and Montenegro, and also round Kragujevae.