MERCILESS EL MAHIDI. Twenty-Five Hundred People Massacred at Shendy.

Te Aroha News, Volume I, Issue 53, 7 June 1884, Page 3

MERCILESS EL MAHIDI. Twenty-Five Hundred People Massacred at Shendy.

Cairo, April 20. — A large number of refugees, owing to the shortness of provisions, left Shendy a few days ago in a steamer for Berber. The steamer ran aground near El Boala, and was soon surrounded by swarms of rebels, who attacked the vessel on all sides and massacred everybody on board. The fugitives numbered 450, including a portion of the Shendy garrison and many women and children. Paris, April 2l. —The "Figaro's" correspondent at Cairo sends the following details of the recent Shendy massacre :— Three hundred Egyptian troops and 600 noncombatants, preferring to make the hazardous attempt to march to Berber to starving at Shendy, set out from the latter place on the 15th inst. A part of the number went slowly by a steamer down the river, while others marched along the river bank. When two hours' march from Shendy they were attacked by Arabs, and, after a short fight, all the troops excepting a few were massacred. The Arabs afterwards captured Shendy. The Egyptian troops there had discarded their arms and uniforms in hopes of being spared. Few, however, escaped the general massacre. Two thousand men and 500 women and children were slaughtered. Many of them were refugees from Khartoum. London, April 21.— The foreign Consuls at Khartoum report, April 9th, that General Gordon considers that the time for retreating has arrived. Gordon will send with Colonel Stewart and Vice-Consul Power, who are to return to Lower Egypt by the way of Abyssinia, all foreigners who choose to accompany them. Gordon himself has no intention of retreating. He has hopes that England will sond him aid. The refugees from Shendy who were massacred consisted of Copts, Egyptians, Assyrians and Greeks. Before they left Khartoum General Gordon said to them : " You are safe in Khartoum, but go if you like." El Mahdi's lieutenant, commanding the rebels between Shendy and Berber, has sent Ulemas to Berber and villages in its vicinity and to the district between Shendy and Khartoum, demanding "immediate submission to our Lord/ the long expeoted one,"