Within the scope of Girne American University, the Cyprus Research Centre (GAU-CRC) organized a thanksgiving walk for the 100th year of Çanakkale Combats.

GAU-CRC explained that the event they organized, ‘Çanakkale Thanksgiving Walk’ for the 100th year anniversary of Çanakkale Combatants will take place at Ergenekon Village – Çanakkale Prisoners Cave.  On Sunday 14th December, the event took place on the Nicosia-Famagusta road, in front of Erülkü Supermarket at 8am.   The walk took approximately 3 hours, 1,5 hours to go and 1,5 hours to come back.

Çanakkale Prisoners Cave:

In 1915, prisoners that were taken by the British at the Çanakkale front and later taken to the island of Cyprus to the area known as the station area in Famagusta (Gülseren Training Camp) were brought to the drop-down prison camp of Turkish prisoners of war, where from time to time they managed to escape.  With the support of Turkish villages (especially Ergenekon, Görneç and Kalavac), to which they escaped, is where the walk will be held, the Prisoners Cave, where the combatants hid waiting for an appropriate time to escape to Anatolia. The strategic location of the cave gave dominant security to the whole area, hiding and ease of movement was an advantage from this position. Since 1922 all escapee Turkish prisoners were able to use this location to be housed.