MISSIONARY’S WIDOW

Evening Star, Issue 22636, 30 April 1937, Page 9

MISSIONARY’S WIDOW

RETURN FROM ABYSSINIA REFUSES TO SPEAK ON MASSACRE Frew Assoeiatioa—By Telegraph—Copyright SYDNEY, April 29. A New Zealander, Mrs M. E. Mitchell whose husband, a missionary, was killed in Abyssinia, has arrived m Sydney on her homeward voyage to Invercargill, with her baby son and Miss M. A. M'Millan, of Dunedin, another missionary. Mrs Mitchell told an interviewer that her husband was a missionary in Gurage Province, about four days’ trek from Addis Ababa. “We were in the direct line of the Italian army pushing up from the south, and Ras Desta urged us to seek safety in his capital, Yega Alam. When he was forced to retreat I went to Addis Ababa. My husband asked to be. alio wed to return to Addis Ababa with Red. Cross supplies, and I think he was trying to get to us when he was killed. Although ho was killed in May, I did not hear of his death until August.” Mrs Mitchell explained that the Italians did not look with particular favour on British missionaries, but up to the time she left nothing had been done to clear them from the country. She was only two miles and a-half from Addis Ababa when the massacres occurred following the attempt on the life of Marshal Gfasdaci, but she refused to speak on the subject, saying: “ That is not my job.”