THE BALKANS.

Taranaki Daily News, 28 February 1917, Page 5

THE BALKANS.

HUN CRUELTY IN ROUMANIA. PRISONERS TORTURED. Rome, Feb. 2G. Italian newspapers give prominence to the horrible story of an escaped Roumanian prisoner, a robust young peasant who was imprisoned in various C&mps and later ««nt to the Italian front to build roads. He says that 60 of his compatriots in one camp died of hunger. The AustroHungarians throughout treated the Roumanians as the Kaiser ordered his poldiers to treat the Chinese Boxer.?. When they entered a Roumanian village they destroyed everything not of immediate use, including farm building? and orchards, shooting old men and women on mere suspicion. Life in thqj prison camps was a constant torture. All the 1 prisoners were starved and forced to work from morn to night under threat of the whip. Some prisoners ate a few seeds which they were sowing in the fields and general punishment was ordered. . The prisoners were beaten with thick sticks and their spines almost broken. Some were hoisted until their toes barely touched the ground and were thus left for hours, or were doubled up, tied with ropes, and left lying on the ground all day long. Many fell dead of hunger In the fields. Only their robust constitutions saved the escaped prisoners.