THE ARMENIAN ATROCITIES.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 10361, 16 May 1895, Page 2

THE ARMENIAN ATROCITIES.

THE REFOEMS DEMANDED. Press Association—By Telegraph—Copyright. Constantinople, May 14. The Note sent by Great Britain, Russia, and Franco respecting reforms ia Armenia insists on" one-third of the officials in Armenia being Christians;, that the Great Powers shall have the right of, Feto in the selection of Governors • that there shall be a mixed gendarmerie; regular assizes shall be held, and rigid prison inspection • that the Kurds shall be disarmed; that the sufferers by the recent atrocities shall be reimbursed; and that the Porte shall appoint a commission to watch over the future administration of Armenia. ■ The commission hava discovered in Geily Cfooaan a burial pit containing the remainß of the inhabitants of several of the destroyed villages. v A correspondent well acquainted with Armenia has been making a personal investigation into the atrocities committed "by the Turks in that unfoitunate country, Armenia, and the result of his inquiries is embodied in a long report published by The Times of March S. The writer is thoroughly convinced that both lssfc • year and this the' Ottoman Government gave oral and written'orders to the Kurds ft> attack the Armenians, promising them the booty, and relieving them :of responsibility as to consequences. The Balakli tribe of Kurds alone refused to have any part in the affair. The Sassun Kurds entered into it half-heartedly only after they saw that it had to be done, and then they devoted themselves almost exclusively to plunder. In this last conflict they secretly helped some of the Armenians to escape. About the end of May last there were several fights between Kurds . and Armenians. The latter, as a rule, held their gronnd, and in some instances repulsed the Kurds. Meanwhile'the Government was concentrating troopa—ls to 18 battalions in all. The Armenians of the Slienig district were called up to surrender, and promised amnesty. About 40 leading men from Semal, headed by a young priest, obeyed the sunmons... They were kept two days in camp and carefully questioned. Oit the "third day these men, who had'been guilty only of defending .themselves against the Kurds,' and had surrendered in good faith to the Government, were brought bound to a pit or trench that had been prepared, the soldiers were ordered to charge on them with their-bayonets, and they were all cast, some of them half-alive, into the pit and buried. When the fate of those who had surrendered began to be known some succeEded in escaping. Setting fire to houses, killing all, big or little, of either sex, became geueraL Firing.of guns and mountain pieces drowned the shrieks of wpmen and children. Young men were caught, bound hands and.- feet, placed on' tbe'ground, covered with brushwood, and burned to death. Others were hacked to pieces. One house ia Shenig was filled with some 501 men, woman, and children; This was set on fire by the soldiers. One boy, who was trying to escape, was caught on a bayonet and thrown back. Kerko, one of the richest men in ths village, did not escape, as he would not desert his wife, who had bseu confined a night or two before. Ha was seized and brought before the Zelon sheikh and the commander of the troops. It setm« ha had wounded the sheikh's brother in the arm in the fight of the previous year. Now, the soldiers and Kurds ha.d their revenge. They took him to his house,- where his wife was lying, and then, placing the new-born babs-on the mother's breast, cut them both in two. Kerko was then takena long distance away and despatched. His shirt, made of specially fice cloth, aad identified by the one who sewed it, was subsequently found. It had some 20 bayouet and dagger rents in it. Ksrko's brother Gazar's wife, an unusually handsome woman, was kept among the soldiers for several days and urged to change her faith; but, as she persistently refused, she was made away with.' , In the village ofSemal, containing from 50 to 60 houses, 12 were woolly destroyed. In Galiu, from a household of 52, only two escaped—an old man and his grandson. . Some hundred women and children were imprisoned in the Galin church for several days. The women were violated and afterwards killed. The number was large enough to make a stream of blood flow out over" the threshold. Sixpicked young • women, two of them maidens of chat village, five from Hetink, and four from Agb.pig, were reserved by the soldiers. After keeping them for days without succeeding in making them sccept Islam, they butchered them. A soldier had taken to himself a girl, 11 years old, from Aghpig. Aootaer soldier wanted to appropriate her, and, when the first owner objected, he shot her dead. A compassionate soldier who was asked by an officer to shoot a woman, purposaly missed her. The officer gave him a cuff, snatched away his gan, and tired. The woman fell with a gre.afc shriek, the man rsn up, and ripping her opea, extracted a living child. The memory of that shriek and that, sight, the solriier went on to say, had made him sick ever eiDce. 'Such treatment of women iv that conditian was a common occurreace, and in almost every case officers proved themselves even more ferocious th&n the common soldiers. As some soldiers were passing through a villaga street they found a child sitting there. Their superior ordered a soldier to kill it. Tee soldier was bold enough to ask what harm the;caild had done to d-s«rve death. The superior then wanlo-i to know if the soldier hsd become a rebel " Kaffir." Upon this the soldier tipped the child over the buck of his sword and - they passed on. A soldier fonnd tso small boys behind a rock chewing brush leaves. He took pity on thetn, and for two days shared his ratiouß with them, but on his next visit to them found them butchered. Auctner soldier succeeds in secreting and caring for six boys in a millet field for shout a week, but comes one day to fiud thsir msngled bodies. Early every morning, at a bugle call, the soldiers tu' the Dalvorig district would sot out in squads to hunt down the villagers. Those at a dis!;atiee they would shoot down. They would shout, " There ha raus !" and those who were in hiding among the busfaea or stcnes would feel insecure and atfempfc to move to another place, when they would be eeen and shot:-. Tbe soldiers sronld fire their puns among the bushes to scare up their " game." Mothers have b-'pn knorrn to smother their children in their effort to keep them quiet co that they should uot be discovered.

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