Congo Tortures.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XLVII, Issue 7887, 1 August 1905, Page 4

Congo Tortures.

SEVENTY-SEVEN NATIVES MURDERED FOR RUBBER. A harrowing-story of the barbae ties practise;! on the natives of the Congo Free State by the Belgian u licials is told in a letter from ;<• Congo correspondent, to Mr .lam.s Irvine, West Atrican merchant, Cas-tle-str'.Vl, Liverpool. The once flourishing village of Nsongo Mboyo, the writer stales, lias been desolaU.l, ami seventy-seven natives murdered, because they did not 'bring in suflcient rubber "from the forest to satis fy the Congo Government officials. Many other natives, including tare-.' women, were bariarously mutilat.'l. One woman was tied to a forked tree ami slowly cut to pieces. pointed stake 'was forced into We body of another woman, who wathen shot. A third woman's cheek and nose were slit. Her right arm and left foot were then cut off, ai.O she was left to die. Natives' huts, too, according to the correspondent, arc constantly destroyed, and their inhabitants hounded into the woods in search of rubber, which it is impossible to procure. These facts have come to light, adds the correspondent, since the departure of the Commission sent out by King I/eopold to investigate the atrocity charges. Captain Baccari, who was sent by the Italian Government to report on the Congo Free State, states that officers have to he mere slave-driv-ers, and that if they refuse they are treated as rebels. Every officer is obliged to take an oath that after. he leaves the Congo service he will never divulge what he saw there.