TURKISH OUTRAGES IN ALBANIA.

Evening Star, Issue 14638, 7 August 1911, Page 5

TURKISH OUTRAGES IN ALBANIA.

WHOLESALE DEVASTATION. I Lave relumed (wrote the special correspondent of -The Times' ou June 19) from I an interesting tour of the frontier district undertaken tor the purpose of visiting (fia Alahsson refugees and ascertaining their conation. Starting from Plavuitza on Saturday morning, I vidted all the botder villages bs-t-weeu that place and Podgoritza. Tne villages are crowded with refugees, many of them in a state of great destitution, though sheltered and fed by the Montenegrins so far as their scanty means allow. In one house I found 3t> persons. Almost all the refugees are old men, women, and children. The young men are still fighting. At Gutobovsky I saw an assembly of several hundred. None of them had yet heard of the amnesty. I explained its terms, telling them of the Sultans gift of £IO,OOO for rebuilding houses. They vehemently declared that they would not return home even if the Sultan filled therr housts with gold. They had been free for 400 years, and would never submit to the .Turkish yoke. King Nicholas was their only friend, and they would remain there even if he gave orders to cut their throats. They stated that all their pronerly had been destroyed, and that old men and women bad been thrown into burning houses, and related other atrocities too horrible to muiiion. For these they vouched with a Bessa, which wdh them possesses the sanctity of a solemn oath. At Closhisch, on tjhe frontier, 1 saw :i number of ruined houses. Tho conflagrations which followed the 'passage of "the troops wore witnessed by frontier guards and the whole population, and are described by deserters who had taken part in the destruction. Some Christian villages of'the Clan Brcdu escaped, apparently owing to the close proximity of the Montenegrin frontier troops. —Many Villages Burnt.—

Yc?tcrda\ I proceeded to a mountainous district where 425 families have sought shelter. At the village of Fundjna I saw some 500 fugitives. All refuse to return home unless King Nicholas gets a guarantee of their .safely. They would prefer to die of hunger here, or to throw themselves into Lake Skutari. Subsequently I went to a height on the frontier which commands an extensive view over the devastation of the country. A large number of roofless, deserted houses were visible. No living being could be seen except the Turkish soldiers in their numerous encampmr.nts on the heights. If any reliance can bo placsd on concurrent testimony from all sides, native and foreign, the devastation of the homesteads of the Catholic Malissori has been complete. Practically all the houses belonging to the C(ith<~c Shkreli and Kastrafi tribes have been burnt, and nil of the Gntdi tribe except at Piakle Schichte, near the frontier, together with the villages of Vukli, Riskhi, Paptcha, Krishevo, aiwl many others. The conflagrations in some instances look place a week or ten days after the passage of the troops. The burning cf flie villages of Trahoin, Vukli, Old Traboin, and Prifti was carried out in the presence of Italian spectators, whore evidence cannot be doubted. A friend who last week reproached Torgttt for this wholesale destruction received the reply that it was cau'ied out under his orders. He bad declared before leaving Constantinople that he would teach the Albanians a lesson which would remain for generations.