RUSSIAN ATROCITIES.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XII, Issue 228, 26 September 1877, Page 4

RUSSIAN ATROCITIES.

A Daily Telegraph despatch from Shumla says ;— I have just seen two Moslem refuges from Sidlikeni, named Ahmed and Suleiman. They bring an awful account of a massacre perpetrated by the Russians upon a company of villagers seeking to escape in a long train of carts. These to the number of many scores each containing on the average four persons, were surrounded by mounted Cossacks, who, after bringing them to a standstill, slashing and stabbing at the woman and children as they sat on the arabaa, and finally opened fire upon the poor creatures till all were killed. One cfrild of about three months was run through the body by a Cossack, who carried it away on his shoulder on the lance head. All along from Sistova downwar.fs, villages haye been destroyed. At Ayaslan the poor Moslem mothers were outraged after seeing their infants torn from their arms and thrown into the waters of the lake. In aorae places men and women were tied together in rows and bayoneted. The informants were hidden in a ditch close by and saw the Ruaians take away some of the arabaa for use, after killing the people, and setting fire lo the broken vehicles. There were over 60 village people with cruel wounds at Gobadan, near Shumla. I have just come from interrgoting the refugees of the Turkish villages in the houses where they have found shelter. I have examined and cross - examined those able to converse, and have seen the cruel hurts inflicted upon others too much iojured to do more than moan. Prom some of the former I have heard statements which perfectly corroborate the terrible story telegraphed to you in my previous message. On Wednesday, July 11, this infamous deed was committed by the troops of the Christian Emperor. The villagers of Heibels (or Ebeli), in company with those from several neighbouring hamlets, were making their flight in a loDg train of arabas, when they were stopped and attacked between Tchaufkeni and Kogipana bv 600 mounted Cossacks. The people* of the village of Heibei ia the company were over 20 score, besides their companions ia flight, and all of these many hundreds of unhappy creatures—men, women, and children — were but chered in a crowd. The troops, when weary of slaughtering with lance and bullet, brought up their field guns and. fired grape into the shrieking mass. In the first house I entered was a woman with sword cuts on the head and wrists, two large wounds in the leg, and a gash in her left breast. Beside her lay a child six years old, with a spear hole in its little chest. One woman here bore aa many as fourteen spear marks upon her body, and must have been goaded by the brutal soldiers in pure lust of torture. Another Moslem was cruelly injured by the Cossack lances in her bosom and limbs. A boy near her was run through the shoulder, and a man who had seen his daughter killed and was himself hurt, sat nursing a little niece of four years, whose back was slashed open by a sabre cut. Altogether I counted 21 sorely injured people, some of them evidently dyiug. This inhuman massacre were perpetrated just after daybreak. From what I can gather it was the act of the ltussian troops only.