Manawatu Herald THURSDAY, JANUARY 17, 1917. MARTYRDOM OF SERVIA.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XL, Issue 1777, 17 January 1918, Page 2

Manawatu Herald THURSDAY, JANUARY 17, 1917. MARTYRDOM OF SERVIA.

SBKAKIKG in the Austrian Weichsrath, Dr. V. Bihar protested against the systematic extermination of the Servian population. He said: “Go jo (In' Balkans and you shall see how the former nourishing towns and villages are now but smouldering ruins, I l 'rolli whole districts the military authorities have carried off women and old men and children jusl as did the Assyrians and'Bahtdonians the comptcred pFople of ancient times. From the vicinity of Nish alone the Bulgarian,- have earned lit),000 persons to the deserts of Asia Minor. !l is a war of extevininalion of the .Jugoslavs.” la the Hungarian Diet a similar protest has been made by M. Zollan Vermes, wlio, referring to the barbarity of the Bulgarians and their crimes against the unfortunate population of Servia, said: “'As commandant of; a detachment, my duties called me lo the mining village of Maidanpek, from which neighbourhood is obtained the pyrites necessary for the nianufaelnre of munitions. The Monarchy ncyds some ]20,000 tons of pyrites, of which quantity this mine alone produce- 40,000 tons; its regular working, therefore, is of capital importance for the Monarchy. There are working in the mine 1,080 labourers, invalided soldiers and interned persons from the Servian civilian population. But the mine is adjacent to the Bulgarian administrative territory, where the Bulgarians pursue with the cruellest severity hands of insurgent Serbs, whose relatives they systematically put to death; thus at Maidanpek executions are the order of the day. Nobody troubles to bury the bodies of those who thus meet their fate; one after another whole villages are cleared

of the friends and relatives of these unhappy, people; the Bulgarians round up the people and send them crtf, some to the Dolmuljn, others to, •Asia Minor. In tips way farms are left maslerless, and .cattle to stray 'over the country, ; and even the rechest villages’fall into a state of utter wretchedness, so that the workmen in the mine are unable with, any certainty to -procure even the barest necessaries of life.”