Martyrs' Day marked at Cairo's Turkish cemetery

By Hussein Elkabany and Aydogan Kalabalik

CAIRO (AA) – Members of the Turkish community in Egypt on Monday marked the Martyrs' Day and the 104th anniversary of the victory battles in Canakkale (Dardanelles) during WWI.

A number of Turkish diplomats and military officials as well as Turkish citizens gathered in the Turkish martyrs' cemetery in eastern Cairo to mark the event.

"This victory in the battles [of Canakkale] showed us the path to independence and liberation from enemies," Turkish charge d'affaires Mustafa Kemalettin Eruygur said during the event.

The Turkish cemetery is located in eastern of Cairo, as a memorial with the names of 4,500 martyrs of the Turkish military who lost their lives defending Palestine during the WWI.

The naval battles in the Canakkale Campaign were fought between February 19 and March 18, 1915, which ended in a victory for the Ottoman forces.

The failure of the British-French plan eventually led to the ground battles in the Gallipoli Campaign in April 1915 that also involved divisions of the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps, or ANZAC.