Unspeakable Atrocities

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 279, 15 February 1928, Page 1

Unspeakable Atrocities

RED FIENDS IN CHINA Orgy of Massacre and Cruelty By Cable.—Press Association. — Copyright. SHANGHAI, Tuesday. ATROCITIES surpassing in horror those of the Spanish Inquisition, and exceeding anything heretofore recorded in China, are recounted by a missionary correspondent of the local British paper, in a despatch from Swatow. His information was obtained from refugees from the afflicted districts—Haifung, Lufung and northern Kwantung.

/COMMUNISTS, following on an orgy of bloodshed and massacre,' have established a reign of terror so terrible that regular soldiers in several instances mutinied rather than obey the Government’s orders to restore order. Eye-witnesses tell of corpses in \ streets being eaten by n-.cmgrel dogs, of babies being chopped to pieces in front of their mothers, who were themselves executed afterwards.

Women approaching childbirth were murdered m au unmentionable manner. Men’s ears and strips of flesh were cut off, fried and eaten before the men ware finally killed. Children were compelled to execute their parents. The uncles of one child who refused told him to proceed to obey the will of Heaven. The boy tried to behead his uncle but bungled the task, which was finished by the Communists. The youth was then executed because he had been unable to kill his uncle. The Communists are endeavouring to identify the whole population with the movement, and the inhabitants are thus compelled, in self-protecfion, to inscribe on their houses an admission of sympathy with the Communists. Where any have refused they have immediately been murdered by a variety of methods. The population ha 3 been organised in groups according to age. Boys up to the age of 20 are compelled to spy upon the movements of their parents. Men over 40 are considered, useless and are classed together with cripples, lepers, the diseased and the blind, and are being slain by hundreds.

This is in accord with the programme of economy to reduce the population by one-third. The Communists' headquarters in two fastnesses iq the mountains, where' they hold huge stocks of ammunition and machine-guns, cover points of approach. Hundreds of Roman Catholic mission proteges have escaped and arrived at awatow, from whence they have migrated to Siam or Singapore. It is reported that two Presbyterian missionaries were killed, six chapels were burned end numerous native temples were destroyed. The inhabitants of one village who resisted the Communists were herded into a temple. This was piled high with combustibles soaked in oil and set on fire.