The Kyrenia Castle Escape took place early in the

Cyprus Emergency The Cyprus Emergency was a conflict fought in British Cyprus between April 1955 and March 1959. The National Organisation of Cypriot Fighters (EOKA), a Greek Cypriot right-wing nationalist guerrilla organisation, began an armed campaign in s ...

. A number of the

EOKA The Ethniki Organosis Kyprion Agoniston (EOKA ; ) was a Greek Cypriot nationalist guerrilla organization that fought a campaign for the end of Cyprus#Cyprus under the British Empire, British rule in Cyprus, and for enosis, eventual union with K ...

were being held prisoner at

Kyrenia Castle Kyrenia Castle ( ) is a 16th-century castle built by the Republic of Venice, Venetians over a previous Crusades, Crusader fortification. Within its walls lies a twelfth-century chapel showing reused late Ancient Rome, Roman capitals, and the Shipwr ...

and on 23 September 1955, sixteen of them escaped by climbing down sheets tied to be a rope. 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 guerrilla outfits. The incident was extremely embarrassing to the British government. Evangelakis was recaptured in February 1957. Firillas was recaptured in April 1957.

November Riot

On 13 November 1955 over 100 prisoners rioted at the castle.

References

{{reflist Cyprus Emergency 1955 in Cyprus Kyrenia Prison escapes September 1955 in Europe