MASS VILLAGE MURDER

Evening Star, Issue 22457, 30 September 1936, Page 2

MASS VILLAGE MURDER

KILLERS RUN AMOK AT WEDDING Mass murder of 14 people, including seven children, was recently carried out oy a Turkish peasant and his nephew, of the village of Aksum, Southern Anaolia. The two men considered they had been wronged in a lawsuit over some land, which they had lost, and they swore to be revenged on the winning parties. . They waited until the whole village had gathered at a wedding ceremony. Then they entered tho house in which the _ festivities were, taking place, mercilessly slew with guns and knives six people, three of whom were children, and then escaped into the woods On the day of their victims’ funeral they reappeared, shot dead two more villagers and a child, and again made a successful getaway. While escaping they dangerously wounded two men and a woman. On tho following day thev returned and slaughtered another villager, his wife, and their three children . ,

A large force of armed police was at once despatched to bring them back dead or alive. They brought them back dead, for the two men put up a desperate resistance, preferring to he killed in “ battle.” Many inhabitants of the Aksum district are now preparing to leave for other parts, for in such cases revenge is sought by the relatives of the murdered men on the families of their assassins.