Excesses Committed by the Turks.

Attacks on Christians, which had become less numerous since the armistice, increased in numbers and ferocity—more particularly with regard to the Greeks—in March 1920, and even more so in June and July 1920 (when preparations were being made for Greek offensives).

Turkish bands of a more or less Kemalist persuasion are scouring the entire sanjak of Ismid as far as the environs of Scutari (Pashakeui, 20 kilom. east of Scutari).

As often as not, these bands are assisted by the Turkish inhabitants of neighbouring villages. A large number of villages have thus been looted or burnt and their decimated population has been obliged to flee.

There should more particularly be mentioned the names of Yeni-Keui, south of Shileh; about a dozen villages in the region north and north-east of Ada-Bazar, and some twelve villages in the region south of Ada-Bazar, amongst them the large village of Orta-Keui, near Gueiveh (16,000 inhabitants), and several villages south and south-east of Ismid.

Since July 1920 the Greek military occupation had restricted the operations of Turkish bands to the eastern and south-eastern part of the peninsula, but the region of Karamursal (south of the Gulf of Ismid) still constitutes an impervious Nationalist centre, from which various bands attack Greek villages in the neighbourhood, aided by the population of Turkish villages.

Excesses committed by enemy bands are often given as a motive or as a pretext for these expeditions.

The latter became very numerous in the spring of 1921, and extended as far as the southern environs of Ismid, bringing about the destruction of all the Christian villages in this region with the exception of Bagchejik.

The Greek authorities have submitted a list of thirty-two villages looted or burnt, with more than 12,000 persons massacred, 2,500 missing, and the remainder of the population (more than 15,000) living as refugees at Ismid.

In view of the numerous witnesses examined by it, the commission is of the opinion that these facts should be accepted as fundamentally true, notwithstanding a certain amount of exaggeration in the figures.

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