TURKS MASSACRE 15,000 MORE GREEKS
So the Athens Government Reports to its Legation in Washington.
DEPORTATIONS THE PRETEXT
Kemalist Troops Employed in Systematic Campaign of Murder and Starvation.
The New York Times.
Jun 14, 1922.
Special to The New York Times.
WASHINGTON. JUNE 13. - In a dis-
patch received by the Greek Legation
today the Greek Government says that
Athens is filled with a deep sense of
horror over the massacre of 15,000 men,
women and children by Turks in the
district of Rhodopolis.
This information is particularly inter-
esting to Washington, as the United
States Government has agreed to join
the British, French and Italian Govern-
ments in an investigation of Turkish
massacres..
The dispatch says that the Greek Gov-
ernor of Sokia reports that five Greeks
who escaped from Geronda, in the in-
terior of Asia Minor, brought tidings
that the whole Greek population in that
part of the country has been deported
toward the furthest interior, in the di-
rection of Mougla. The dispatch adds:
"On the way they are being gradually
massacred. The women and children
are herded together in a few houses and
there left to die of starvation. Prior
to this the women are forced to dance
for the amusement of the Turkish rab-
ble, and the violation of women, girls
and young boys is carried on in the
most abominable manner."
Persecution of Greeks in the Pontine
region, depositions of refugees from
Trebizond state, continued without
abatement. The district of Rhodopolis
has been surrounded by Turkish troops
and bands of wild irrgulars. The
Metropolitan of that See and his flock
are shut up in their dwellings and are
said to be in danger of starvation. A
fortnight ago irregulars and Turkish
troops invaded several villages of that
part of the country, the cablegram said,
and, violating the women and robbing
and murdering the other inhabitants,
set fire to the houses.
The monks of the Monastery of Peri-
steriota were delivered over to the
irregulars, who pillaged all the precious
objects and carried off all the cash in
the monastery.
The dispatch says that persecutions
are directed chiefly against the eastern
villages of the Trebizond area.
"The fariest portions of Asia Minor
are now reduced to a smoking and
howling wilderness the l ike of which
the civilized world perhaps never before
in history has had brought to it s at-
tention," the Greek egation declares.
Another official cablegram says that
Dr. Dalolio, an Italian physician of the
Italian Red Cross, has just arrived in
Athens from Makri and has made known
to the authorities an account of Ke-
malist atrocities which "he saw with his
own eyes." This physician is said to
have confirmed the reports that the
atrocities are carried out according to
a premeditated plan of eliminating all
traces of elements which are not Mus-
ulman. Every male inhabitant between
the ages of 12 and 85 years is deported
into the interior and forced to march
for forty days to Fonjah and Malatin,
or assigned to forced labor.
