Gallipoli dead commemorated in dawn service

Thousands of people have gathered on the site of former WWI battlefields in Turkey for a ceremony to remember those who died in the devastating Battle of Gallipoli 93 years ago.

Australia’s defence minister Joel Fitzgibbon and the foreign minister of New Zealand, Winston Peters, joined some 10,000 people for the annual dawn service today.

Troops from Australia and New Zealand first landed at dawn on April 25, 1915 on the Gallipoli peninsula in an attempt to take control of the Bosphorus and Dardanelles and capture Istanbul.

Some 90,000 Allied soldiers were killed in the battle. Turkish casualties were estimated at 250,000.