Twenty-Five Thousand South Korean Men, Women, Children Murdered As Anti Communists

Wanganui Chronicle, 7 October 1950, Page 5

Twenty-Five Thousand South Korean Men, Women, Children Murdered As Anti Communists

SEOUL. Oct. 6 (Recd. 6 p.m.)—The bodies of 25.000 South Korean men, women, and children, murdered for being antiCommunist, have been found in South Korea in the wake of the routed North Korean invasion army. The total is an officially esti- ————

mated minimum. American officers say that it may run much higher, as each day brings new disclosures of enemy atrocities against the South Koreans. When they had time the North Koreans covered evidence of their atrocities with earth. When they were hurried they left many bodies of victims sprawled in open ditches or in exposed mounds. Mass graves, large and small, are being fouid daily in South Korean communities along the bloody enemy retreat trail. Some have not yet’been opened by American officers investigating killings. Partial figures on large-scale slaughters definitely counted have shown this toll: Seoul area: 10,000, possible more. Taejon: Between s<K*o and 6000. Wonju: Between 1000 and 2000. Yosu: 200. Chongju: 2400. Suchon-Yangpong: 700. Mokpo: 500. American investigating officers said they expect to find "450 to 500 in every fair-sized town” they check. At Changhung, near Kunsan, enemy soldiers armed with bamboo spears, last Monday impaled 82 men, women and children. Other enemy troops swooped down on Chongju, about 20 miles north of Taejon, on September 26, and burned to death 150 civilians and 18 captured American soldiers. The slaughter took place an hour after the Allied task force rolled through Chongju without knowing that the 18 captured Americans were there. The chief South Korean victims of the enemy were city and village officials, policemen, civilians renounced as anti-Communists, and civilians who refused to conform to Communist theories.—Associated Press.