MURDER LET LOOSE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 20 May 1941, Page 5

MURDER LET LOOSE

POLICY OF COLD BLOODED MASSACRE

ADOPTED BY THE AXIS IN YUGOSLAVIA.

ESTIMATE OF 50.000 VICTIMS SINCE INVASION.

(By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyrighti LONDON. May 19. The Germans, Hungarians and Bulgarians in Yugoslavia are competing in cold-blooded massacres, aiming at extermination of the Serbians, says the Istanbul correspondent of “The Times.” Since the invasion, it is conservatively estimated, there have been 50,000 victims of mass executions.

At Vrsac a. priest and 29 other persons have been hanged, while at Alibunar a professor and 70 students have been shot. The correspondent says this is typical of the happenings in practically every Serbian town and village. Priests are a special object of the invaders’ hatred. The Patriarch Gavrilo was brought to Belgrade and his clerical robes were removed; he was confined in his underclothes to the ground floor of a building where he is on view to the passers-by. Eighty thousand Serbs have been expelled from the territory that is now allocated to Hungary, and thousands more have been expelled from Serbian Macedonia by the Bulgarians. Husbands are separated from their wives and mothers from their children.

In spite of the deliberate attempt at extermination, the Serbians are maintaining their offensive spirit and between 50,000 and 60.000 Serbians, commanded by officers of the Yugoslav army, are continuing guerrilla warfare in the mountains of Bosnia and Montenegro and also around Kragujevttc. RUTHLESS LOOTING GREEK ISLANDERS STARVING. (Received This Day, 10,55 a.m.) LONDON. May 19. Reports from Chios (a Greek island off the coast of Asia Minor) depict an unbearable situation, says "The Times" Istanbul correspondent. The islanders are starving because the Germans have requisitioned all their livestock and bread is unprocurable. The invaders also requisitioned beds, bed linen and blankets. The doors of houses must be left open at night. Despite a German warning that the islanders must not leave under pain of death, many are secretly reaching Turkey.