CONDITION OF ALBANIA.

Auckland Star, Volume XLV, Issue 126, 28 May 1914, Page 8

CONDITION OF ALBANIA.

THOUSANDS STARVING AND \ HOMELESS. j I T__?_F_l___J_ RE-TT.T. 1.1-' WAX'S i KAVAGE.. . j A special correspondent of trie London , "Daily Express," in the coin.- of a letter describing a visit, paid to tiie Iwcßtcni portion vi I'm Balkan Benin-, .iula, said.- — j Turning to Albania, the population o! j which remained for the most part prac- . tkally neutral during the .ar., the • 'country has suffered almost, if not quite' |as much as any oi those whose peoples j 'were a.tively engaged in tne recent hostilities, indeed, even now feigns are, not wanting that something abnormal! has recently taken place. The most tin-j portant arc:— j 111 Tbe number of building- or > il- j lages that are now in rack and ruin- j To begin with, a considerable portion , of what is, known a- the "Bazaar,'' iv j Scutari, was completely destroyed by tire during the brief Montenegrin occupation of that cit.v. Again, the. man who travels in Albania, and especially through its northern districts, cannot help noticing the enormous number o; ■Innned house-, farms, and villages which lie continually passes. (__i That the whole country mv<»iu_» with homeless refugees, who, as a result of recent events upon aud near the Sorlm-Albanian frontier, have (led toI wards the Adriatic, and into the-very heart of Europe's latest Principality. When I was in Scutari the town overrun by many thousands of these l-.oor creator*., some of whom have j now been persuaded to return to their; j homes. While, every available mosque j I had been utilised as a temporary fcbel- i Iter, the remainder of the refugees, r I many of whonrthad lost everything ex j cept" the very scanty clothing which; they wore, were housed in barracks completely empty, if not v. indowlc_s. At t 'the end of October I saw families, or even the. inhabitants of whole villages, I squatting together outside their then roofless shelters, and eagerly eating the ration bread, some 12,000 loaves of i which were then being 'issued daily by the representatives of the Austrian and Italian Governments. Ou my arrival at. TiraDa early in November 1 found t.he city completely | overrun by about SCIOO refugees who had | arrived from the neve Servian town of ] Dihra. While about one-third of this • number wore housed in the military barracks, the remainder were compelled to sleep about the city—iv the numerous cemeteries, or anywhere they could. It was, indeed, a pitiful sight to sec the poor women rocking their children to sleep in the open. But dreadful as was the lot of the refugee* at both Scutari and Tirana, that of those at Elbasau wa.- far worse. At the time of my visit, some two or three week- ago. the city itself contained about 4000 fugitives, while the J surrounding villages were estimated toj he providing accommodation for some! 5000 more. Some with only the clothe-s they stood up in. and some rea'.lv only half-clothed, women without their hus- i band.-, and children in their night I clothes, the refugees crowded round mc ] in tb. streets all day. ] Ihc Albanian Provisional Government has done its iitni,v-f to provide relief for tiie destitute in and around KlUasan I jiat the mm of my ij.-it __lll!Hl had j already linen expended upon foo.li. but! it i- quite una/.iie to cope ait I, a situa- j jtioii of extreme gravity. F._u_<.l in' jm.-ist of the t,li_-tr-i'niir mosques uf the i jit.v and in the wiido-vless Turkish oar- | .racks, hale a.nd hearty men. terrified ', to return In their homes, are anxious] I for work, and '-an find none. 1 visited a building made up of two rooms, a j sort of passage, and a stairca.-e. which j c.intaitied :_•> people— tie inhabitants ot ! two whole v_lla«fs. Kach family, or sometimes two families together." had' their own comer or area of the floor i space. They had improvised shelters o_ I narking, and lit fire-, sometimes upon small blocks of rock brought in from the neighbouring river bed. and sometimes actually upon the wooden floor. Refuse, dirty water, and other things were simply- pn'nhed through the numerous holes in the lluor. thrown out of the glass and islitrtterlesß windows, or ; deposited immediately outside the doors without any regard or Te.pect for sanitary conditions.