BRITISH PRISONERS IN TURKEY

Mount Ida Chronicle, Volume XLV, Issue XLV, 5 October 1917, Page 1

BRITISH PRISONERS IN TURKEY

GJEWM STORIES OF ATROCITIES.

Evidence is steadily accumulating of the bad treatment of the British prisoners of war m Turkey (says an exchange. It is learned from the most trustworthy sources that a large number of British and Indian prisoners in Mesopotamia have succumbed to IU-treatment or lack- of proper medical attention. A man who was for some time near a prfsoners-of-war camp iu the Taurus states that more than half of the unfortunate men captured at Kut are now dead. It is noteworthy that the Swiss Red CrosCommission, whose report was sufficient! v damning with re c ard to the camps wliic\ they were ailowed to inspect, were not ■«- lowed to approach this camp or other camir,•I th* umt type.

Thirty-seven British prisoners were sent to •a hospital under European management rhe European doctor in charge was of Th Q opinion that, with proper caref he cou.d save 35 of them, but he and his assistants wee driven away from their own hospital, and , during the first 15 days 22 of the 1 men' died Sb T t " eg .' ect - ' Flft - V Prisoners ca£ tnred at Kafca n April, 1916, were sent o a hospital at A eppo. They could hardly --.tand from weakness. One asked for a •-prette One was »iven him by a bystander, but the non-commissioned officer in ••harge of the party snatched it away and stamped on it. AJI of these prisoners were uitlenng from dysentery due to starvation A German.subaltern who spent the winter .'t Marmurea saw the bodies of 400 Indian prisoners who had died of starvation. Another witness saw 150 British prisoners at Katma, in Northern Syria, in the most do-' !>torable condition. Their only ration consisted, he stated, of eoun-