Kyrenia Castle Escape

The Kyrenia Castle Escape took place early in the Cyprus Emergency. A number of the EOKA were being held prisoner at Kyrenia Castle and on 23 September 1955, sixteen of them escaped.

The escapees were: Marcos Drakos, Christakis Eleftheriou, Evangelos Evangelakis, Mikis Fyrillas, Lambros Kafkallides, Constantinos Loizou, Pavlos Nikitas, Petros Papaioannou, Panayiotis Papanastasiou, Andreas Polyviou, Michalakis Rossides, Lefkios Rodosthenous, Stelios Siamisis, Petros Stylianou, Demos Vryonides, Charilaos Xenofontos. Seven were caught but the other nine - Evangelakis, Xenofontos, Kafkalides, Drakos, Rodosthenous, Fyrillas, Polyviou, Eleftheriou, and Nikitas - joined EOKA guerilla outfits. The incident was extremely embarrassing to the British government.