The San Francisco call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913, 1895-12-16
Fury of the Kurds Was Not Salts.
fed With Slaughter of
Their Victims.
THE OUTRAGEs IN HARP00T
Refugees Forcibly Taken From a
Church and Cut Down
Without Mercy.

LONDON, ENG, Dec. 15.-The repre-
sentative in Constantlnople of the United
Press, telegraphing under yesterdays
date, says that advices from the interior
showed that forced conversions from
Christianity to Mohammedanism are oc-
curing everywhere. Women and children
whose husbands and fathers have been
killed and whose nopes have been de-
stroyed have, rather than lead life of
vagabondage, accepted Islamism, where
upon they were housed and fed by the
Turks.
The sincerity Of these conversions may
be judged from what has occurred in Kai-
sarea. In this place many women whose
protectors had fallen In the massacres
were offered their choice between en-
bracing the tenets of the Koran or being
either hacked to pieces or meeting the
worse fate of being kidnapped. Ostensibly
the women accepted Islamism and thus
rendered their lives and perhaps their
honor secure.
1t is now known that perhaps 1000 per-
sons were killed in the massacres in Kai-
sarea. The fury of the Kurds was not
satisfied with the death of its victims, but
vented itself upon the inanimate bodies.
The mutilation OF the corpses " 8 fright
full and in many cases was of nature that
cannot be described.
In Harpoot sixty Christians fed to a
church in the vain hope that its walls
would furnish them shelter against those
who were crying for the blood of Ar
menians. They were permitted for time
TO believe themselves secure, but suddenly
the church was surrounded by great
number of Kurds. The doors were then
blown in, and the Christians thought that
they wouldb be massacred within the sacred
structure. They were not. Their captors
took them one at time outside the
church, and there, Needless of the pitiable
cries for mercy from the women and
children, killed them, either by shooting
or stabbing them. The first victim was
the Protestant pastor of the church, who,
as he was dragged out, bade the others, if
they had to die, to die as Christians. He
met his death like martyr. Some of
the refugees in agony of terror offered to
abjure their faith and accept Islamism,
thinking thus to save their lives. The
offers ayailed them nothing, for their in
satiable enemies after accepting them
dragged the converts out and killed them
one by one.
The Armenian church has been turned
into mosque and the Protestant church
into stable.
In Kaisarea the soldiers joined in the
looting that accompanied the massacres.
Van and Trebizond are rapidly filling
with refugees from the pillaged villages ad-
jacent to those cities.
Hundreds of women, almost completely
exhausted from fear and lack of food, have
reached Van and Trebizond. Their coudi-
ton is most deplorable. They have been
robbed of about everything they possessed.
Large numbers of them were barefooted
and the only covering they had for their
bodies was thin garments which furnished
no protection against the inclement
weather.
There is no doubt that many of those
who escaped death at the hands OF the
Kurds will die from the effects of the ex-
posure they have undergone, while many
others will fall victims to starvation. The
promptest aid that can reach the sufferers
from foreign countries will not avail to
prevent an enormous death list from these
causes. but unless aid is promptly fur