WAR PRISONERS IN TURKEY

Otago Daily Times, Issue 17103, 7 September 1917, Page 2

WAR PRISONERS IN TURKEY

GRIM STORIES OF ATROCITIES,

Evidence is steadily accumulating of the bad treatment of the British prisoners of war in Turkey.

It is learnt from the most trustworthy sources that a large number of British and Indian prisoners in Mesopotamia Have succumbed to ill-treatment or lack of proper medical attention.

A man who was for some time near a prisoners-bf-war camp in the Taurus etat.es that moro than half of the unfortunate men captured at Kut are now dead. It is noteworthy that the Swiss Red Cross Commission, whose report was sufficiently damning with regard to the camps which they were allowed to inspect, were not allowed to approach this camp or other camps of the same type.

Thirty-seven British prisoners were sent to a hospital under European management. The European doctor in charge was of the opinion tnat with proper care he could save 35 of them, but he and his assistants were driven away from their own hospital, and during the first 15 days 22 of the men died from sheer neglect.

Fifty prisoners captured at Katia in April, 1916, were sent to a hospital at Aleppo. One asked for a cigarette. One was given him by a bystander, but the non-commis-sioned officer in charge, of the party snatched it away and stamped, on it. All of these prisoners were suffering from dysentery duo to starvation.

A German subaltern who spent the winter at Marmurea saw the bodies of 400 Indian prisoners who had died of starvation.

Another witness anw 150 British prisoners at Katmn. in Northern Syria, in the most deplorable condition. Their only ration consisted, he stated, of soup.—Router.