Atrocities in Roumelia.

Thames Star, Volume IX, Issue 3005, 2 October 1878, Page 1

Atrocities in Roumelia.

Constantinople, July B.—Consul-Ge-neral Fawcett returned this morning from Lagos, and brings a report of the intense sufferings of the refugees and population * in . the districts south of the;;Khodope Mountains. The supplies Mr Fawcett took with him were only a drop in the ocean of starvation and misery prevailing in that region. In qne instance the Kaimakan sold for his own benefit the corn intended for the relief of the poor. Mr Fawcett's report •. proceeds to enumerate the horrors perpetrated by the Bulgarians and. Cossacks and sometimes even by the regular Russian soldiers, lUppn, the defenceless, population., , s?he evident design of these malefactors seems to be the extermination -or utter dispersion of the Mussulmans and of Christians favourable to them. In th» Domedea district alone 63 villages were plundered and .burnt by fiussian and Bulgarian troops within the last two months. , Twenty-three villages have been equally laid waste and burnt in the district of Haskiev, and in the Philippopoli district 12 villages were burnt, jn numerous villages named in the report-' there has been wanton destruction attended by deeds of unheard of barbarity. The cases of men and women deliberately burnt alive are frequent; in one instance an old woman was thrown alive into a burning house. Violation of the young girls was . very frequent. The report speaks of a girl who was tied to the ground, hands and feet, and subjected to outrages till she died, under 'their infliction. Nothing more ■■ horrible than the particulars of, this - report can be imagined! , Its veracity J rests on the official authority of one of the most respected among Her Majesty's servants and on that of men employed by him. Upon his conviction of their perfect . trustworthiness, Mr Fawcett intends to lay the report before the English, Austrian - and French Ambassadors, with a view to more those Powers to send out a Commission of Inquiry to the spot, and endeavour to put an end to excesses which disgrace humanity.—Times.