U U’s Statement.

When we began to run away from the fight, we ran away many times. They did not catch me because I was with mother and father. Afterwards mother died; four days passed, father died also. I and an older sister were left with two younger children, and then the fighting came where I had run to. Then my elder sister called me: “U U, come here.” I went. She said: “Let us run away, because we have not any one to take care of us.” When we were running away we saw a lot of W W* people coming towards us. We told them to run away, war was coming. They said: “Is it true?” We said: “It is true; they are coming.” The W W* people said: “We will not run away; we did not see the soldiers.” Only a little while they saw the soldiers, and they were killed. We stayed in a town named X X*. A male relative called me: “U U, let us go;” but I did not want to. The soldiers came there; I ran away by myself; when I ran away I hid in the bush. While I was running I met with an old man who was running from a soldier. He (the soldier) fired a gun. I was not hit, but the old man died. Afterwards they caught me and two men. The soldiers asked: “Have you a father and mother?” I answered, “No.” They said to me, “If you do not tell us we will kill you.” I said: “Father and mother are dead.” After that my oldest sister was caught, too, in the bush, and they left my little brother and sister alone in the bush to die, because heavy rain came on, and they had not had anything to eat for days and days. At night they tied my hands and feet for fear that I should run away. In the morning they caught three people—two had children; they killed the children. Afterwards I was standing outside, and a soldier asked me, “Where are you going?” I said, “I am going home.” He said, “Come on.” He took his gun; he put me in the house; he wanted to kill me. Then another soldier came and took me. We heard a big noise; they told us that the fighting was over, but it was not so. When we were going on the way they killed ten children because they were very, very small; they killed them in the water. Then they killed a lot of people, and they cut off their hands and put them into baskets and took them to the white man. He counted out the hands—200 in all; they left the hands lying. The white man’s name was “C D.” After that C D sent us prisoners with soldiers to P* to S T. S T told me to weed grass. When I was working outside a soldier came and said: “Come here;” and when I went he wanted to cut my hand off, and so I went to the white man to tell him, and he thrashed the soldier.

On our way, when we were coming to P*, the soldiers saw a little child, and when they went to kill it the child laughed so the soldier took the butt of the gun and struck the child with it, and then cut off its head. One day they killed my half-sister and cut off her head, hands, and feet because she had on rings. Her name was Q Q Q. Then they caught another sister, and they sold her to the W W* people, and now she is a slave there. When we came to P* the white man said to send word to the friends of the prisoners to come with goats to buy off some of their relatives. A lot were bought off, but I had no one to come and buy me off because father was dead. The white man said to me, “You shall go to....” The white man (S T) gave me a small boy to care for, but I thought he would be killed, so I helped to get him away. S T asked me to bring the boy to him, but I said: “He has run away.” He said he would kill me, but....

(Signed) U U.

Signed by U U before me.
(Signed)
Roger Casement,
His Britannic Majesty’s Consul.

Inclosure 4 in No. 3.

(See p. 34.)

Notes in the Case of V V, a Native of L L* in the Mantumba District, both of whose hands have been hacked or beaten off, and with reference to other similar cases of Mutilation in that District.

I found this man in the ... station at Q* on , and learned that he had been kept by the missionaries for some years, since the day when a party of native teachers had found him in his own town, situated in the forest some miles away from Q*. In answer to my inquiry as to how he came to lose his hands, V V’s statement was as follows:—

“State soldiers came from P*, and attacked the R R* towns, which they burned, killing people. They then attacked a town called A B* and burned it, killing people there also. From that they went on to L L*. The L L* people fled into the forest, leaving some few of their number behind with food to offer to the soldiers—among whom was V V. The soldiers came to L L*, under the command of a European officer, whose native name was T U. The soldiers took prisoner all the men left in the town, and tied them up. Their hands were tied very tight with native rope, and they were tied up outside in the open; and as it was raining very hard, and they were in the rain all the time and all the night, their hands swelled, because the thongs contracted. His (V V’s) hands had swollen terribly in the morning, and the thongs had cut into the bone. The soldiers, when they came to L L*, had only one native a prisoner with them; he was killed during the night. At L L* itself eight people, including himself (V V) were taken prisoners; all were men; two were killed during the night. Six only were taken down in the morning to Y Y*. The white man ordered four of the prisoners to be released; the fifth was a Chief, named R R R. This Chief had come back to L L* in the night to try secretly to get some fire to take back into the forest, where the fugitives were hiding. His wife had become sick during the heavy rain in the forest, and the Chief wanted the fire for her; but the soldiers caught him, and he was taken along with the rest. This Chief was taken to P*, but he believes that on the way, at Z Z*, he tried to escape, and was killed. V V’s hands were so swollen that they were quite useless. The soldiers seeing this, and that the thongs had cut into the bone, beat his hands against a tree with their rifles, and he was released. He does not know why they beat his hands. The white man, T U, was not far off, and could see what they were doing. T U was drinking palm-wine while the soldiers beat his hands with their rifle-butts against the tree. His hands subsequently fell off (or sloughed away). When the soldiers left him by the waterside, he got back to L L*, and when his own people returned from the forest they found him there. Afterwards some boys—one of whom was a relation—came to L L*, and they found him without his hands.”