THE BALKAN STATES

Otago Daily Times, Issue 12639, 17 April 1903, Page 5

THE BALKAN STATES

ATROCITIES BY BULGARIANS. MUSSULMAN VILLAGERS MASSACRED. ALBANIANS SINK INTER-TRIBAL SQUABBLES. a generallnsurrection , INTENDED. ABANDONED FOR THE PRESENT. Press Association-By Telegraph-Copyright. LONDON, April 15. (Received April IG, at 7.30 a.m.) Authenticated reports have been received of tho destruction by Bulgarians of an exclusively Mussulman village. One hundred and sixty-five persons were massacred in cold blood. Amongst other horrors reported, the Bulgarians ' disembowelled pregnant women, and one woman was impaled. MURDER, PILLAGE, AND ATROCITIES. LONDON, April 15. (Received April 16, at 9.24 a.m.). Well-authenticated reports state that murder, pillage, incendiarism, and atrocities of every description occur daily in the Balkans, and that they are committed alike by soldiers, Albanians, Turks, and Bulgarians. THE PORTE'S VIEW OF THE SITUATION. CONSTANTINOPLE, April 15. (Received April 16, at 7.30 a.m.) Hussein Hilmi Pasha, the Governorgeneral of the Macedonian vilayets, has assured the London Times's interviewer that the Porte considered the Albanian question settled. Only a' small and ignorant faction were concerned in the revolt. Twenty thousand troops are now massed round Mitrovitza, and these were able to overawe the malcontents. He hoped to show within three months that the proposed reforms were in progress. The foreign diplomatists consider that Hilmi is too optimistic, and hold that the only solution of the trouble will be completo disarmament and tho military occupation of Albania. THE DEATH OF M. STCHERBINA. (Received April IC, at 4.50 p.m.) The Russian Ambassador having informed the Sultan, on being notified that Ibrahim, the assailant of the late M. Stcherbina, Russian Consul at Mitrovitza, had been sentenced to 15 years' imprisonment, that the man should either be acquitted or executed, Ibrahim has now been sentenced to death at Mitrovitza. With a view to uniting to resist the proposed reforms, the Albanians have declared a truce to inter-tribal quarrels. GENERAL INSURRECTION PREPARATIONS.

DISCLOSED BY A TBAITOR. CONSTANTINOPLE, April 16. (Received April 16, at 11.35 p.m.) A traitor has informed the European Consul at Salonica of the 'Bulgarian Revolutionary Committee's methods. He stated that the inhabitants of Macedonia, under pain of death, were compelled to accept the committee's bonds, repayable after Macedonia has been liberated from Turkish rule. He alleged that women carried revolutionary correspondence across the frontier. He also averred that 180 Bulgarian officers, disguised as pilgrims, are now operating in Macedonia, and that 120,000 rifles and large quantities of cartridges, bombs, and dynamite have been imported under the guiso of holy relics, Customs officers conniving at the importation. It was expected that the rebellion will begin at the timo of tho Greek Easter holidays, when tho railway bridges and tunnels will be dynamited, accompanied by wholesale incendiarism and, at the carnival, massacre and pillage.

THE INSURRECTION ABANDONED. GUERILLA OPERATIONS TO BE CONTINUED. CONSTANTINOPLE, April 16. .(Received April 17, at 0.2 a.m.) The Macedonian internal organisation lias resolved to abandon a general insurrection for 1903, owing to Turkey's overwhelming military strength and the improbability of outside aid being afforded, and to confine its operations' to guerilla warfare. RUSSIAN CLAIM FOR COMPENSATION. VIENNA, April 15. (Received April 16, at 9.24 a.m.) The Neue I'reie Presse says that Russia demands £4800 as compensation for the murder of M. St-cherbina, late Consul at Mitrovitza, the despatoh of 20,000 Anatolian troops to Old Servia to permanently repress the Albanians, and the erection of a chapel on the scene of M. Stcherbina's murder. THE RUSSIAN VOLUNTEER FLEET. ST. PETERSBURG, April 15. (Received April 16, at 9.24 a.m.) The Russian Black Sea volunteer fleet has been ordered to refuse cargoes and to prepare to mobilise.