FRIGHTFUL CONDITIONS.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LXI, Issue 97, 24 March 1941, Page 7

FRIGHTFUL CONDITIONS.

ITALIAN PRISON CAMP. (British Official Wireless.) RUGBY, March 22. After the capture of Mogadishu, capital of Italian Somaliland, the British discovered 1300 political pris : oners interned by the Italians under the most appalling conditions in a camp known as Denane, states the Ministry of Information. All except 200 or 300 of these unfortunate prisonera were Abyssinians who had been kept in revolting conditions for more than five years. The others were antiFascist Somalis and British and Indian traders. Among them were also 70 seamen, mostly Lascars, from the crews of ships sunk by Nazi raiders in the Indian Ocean.

The prisoners had to sleep in leanto's, protected from the rain, but under corrugated iron roofs, the heat being intolerably. Their only drinking water came from a well near the beach. This was not rationed but was salty. Bathing was _ allowed once a week under supervision.. Conditions were worst among the Abyssinians, who were living in most unsanitary quarters. Prisoners who had died were buried without coffins. The prisoners were under constant surveillance by Italian guards posted on a coral built wall.

After the fall of Mogadishu the Italian guards ran up a white flag. Fearing a rising, they sent officers to appeal to the British.

Among the men released was Mr A. F.- Denholm, of Ngaio, Wellington, fourth engineer of the Commissaire Ramel, formerly a French liner of 10,161 tons, which traded for many years between Marseilles, Melbourne and Noumea and which was manned by a British crew. She was captured by a raider in September.