400 Victims Of Massacre In East Algiers

Press, Volume XCVII, Issue 28699, 24 September 1958, Page 9

400 Victims Of Massacre In East Algiers

(N.Z. Press Association—Copyright)

ALGIERS, September 22. French troops combing the dense forest and scrub area of the Kabylie mountains east of Algiers have found a vast charnel house of more than 400 burned and mutilated bodies of Algerians massacred by the Insurgents, French military authorities said tpnlght. They said the area, formerly the site of a local insurgent headquarters, was littered with torture instruments and charred and dismembered bodies. Crude attempts had been made by the insurgents to bury some of the dead in a huge communal grave before they deserted the camp. An Army spokesman told a news conference that all the dead appeared to be Moslems of neighbouring villages. He said French troops had found leaflets distributed by the Nationalist rebels saying the mass killing was carried out as punishment “for treason.” Military sources said tonight that some of the partially charred bodies had been soaked with petrol before being set alight. The torture instruments included torches with cotton balls on the end soaked in petrol, clubs, whips, and hatchets. Some of the mutilated bodies

had the Cross of Lorraine, symbol of the war-time Free French forces under General de Gaulle, marked in knife slashes on their backs.

Later an official announcement said all the dead were members of the rebel unit of Colonel Amirouche, the American Associated Pres* reported. They were killed, it said, for plotting to betray the cause of the anti-French rebellion. The area surrounding the scene is one of the strongholds of the Nationalist rebellion. Thousands of rebel fighter* find shelter in the rugged mountains covered by dense woods. Three regiments of French paratroopers and units of mountain trained alpine infantry took part in a concentrated attack on the mountain hide-out where the bodies were discovered.