HORRORS IN CAIRO.

Taranaki Daily News, 12 July 1919, Page 10

HORRORS IN CAIRO.

ATTACKS ON ARMENIANS. SOME TERRIBLE ATROCITIES. A grim picture of the recent scenes in Cairo and of the attacka on Armenian subjects by frenzied natives is given by Reuter's correspondent, who had interviewed some of the thousands of Armenians now safe under British protection.

Nobody (he says) anticipated such scenes as have disgraced for ever the name of Turkey, but it must be admitted that scenes every bit as distressing have occurred in Cairo, though to a lesser degree owing to British intervention. All these poor refugees are now thrown upon charity, and, although they have a feeling of thankfulness for their deliverance, yet the future, like the past, can only appear as a black spectre. I have spoken to one Armenian woman who passed through shocking experiences.

"I was," she said, "in my little flat in Mohamed Ali Street, together with my son, aged 1 , my mother, aged 70, and r male relation, when the crowd, which had been gathering in the street, became threatening. As it was quite impossible to escape, we hid under the beds. MOB SHOWS NO PITY. "The mob then invaded the house, going first to the second floor, where an Armenian shoemaker was living. We soon heard evidence of their work. Shrieks rent the air, but,these soon died away.

"Shortly afterwards there was a banging on our own door, which was smashed in. Men rushed into the room and dragged us out of our hiding-places. Foremost among them were native policemen brandishing their sabres, who immediately attacked my male relative and killed him, afterwards hurling his body through the window. "I cried for mercy, but they had no pity."

The woman described how, in the presence of her son and mother, she suffered outrage by a native policeman, while men armed with lcnives and hatchets guarded ,the door. They afterwards smashed up everything they could find, and threw the furniture into the street.

This poor woman, who was about forty years of age, was in a broken condition, and fainted while telling her distressing story. BATTERED TO PIECES.

In another case an old woman, with her only son, heard ,the mobs coming up the s,treet. The son ran out to see what was happening. He never returned, but the mother recognised his corpse later at the hospital, with both hands out off and his head battered in. two Armenians who were walking in the Babelsharia quarter of the town found a crowd barricading the street. One of the rioters, seeing them, shouted, "There are two Armenians," whereupon the mob rushed at them, battering one to pieces with broken paving stones. Another Armenian, a shopkeeper, was done to death in the Opera Square, in the centre of Cairo.

Some of the rioters, having indicated the house in which he was living as the building from which a revolver shot had been fired, the mob attacked and started looting the apartments of Maltese and Italian subjects living there. The Armenian escaped from roof to roof, and finally tumbled into a Greek pharmacy in the Opera Square, where first aid was administered. Troops then arrived on the scene, but on quiet being apparently restored, they moved off.

OPERA SQUARE SCENE. The mob, however, again surged into Opera Square, and visited the pharmacy in search of the fugitive Armenian. O.thers quickly followed, and started to destroy the shop. The Armenian wa9 then dragged into the street, and there, in the presence of hundreds of citizens,, the man was battered beyond recognition, the mob dancing on .the lifeless body. Even after the corpse had been placed in a covered ambulance they tore away the cover, spat upon the body, and continued to batter it. The dreadful scene was witnessed by people on neighboring balconies. These are only some of the revolting incidents of the past few days, but they suffice (says the message) to show the state of insecurity at present prevailing in Cairo, and how completely .the lower elements of the population have been carried away by the lust for bloodshed and pillage.