Anzac Cove crowd defies security warnings for dawn service

Up to 15,000 New Zealanders, Australians and Turks defied security concerns to gather for the dawn service at Anzac Cove in Turkey yesterday.

The Australian and New Zealand Governments warned their citizens not to go to Turkey for fear of terrorist attacks after suicide bombings in Istanbul in November, which killed 62 people.

The Turkish Government had hundreds of soldiers guarding the Anzac Cove area, searching bags and checking identification.

But Consumer Affairs Minister Judith Tizard, who represented the New Zealand Government, said the security was low key and unobtrusive.

The number of people who attended the ceremony despite the warnings, was an indication of how important many people felt it was to visit the place, she said.

"It's my first time and as somebody who went to dawn parades with my grandfather who was in the trenches in France, I must say it has been quite overwhelming."

Yesterday's ceremony commemorated the 89th anniversary of the Anzac landing at Gallipoli.

"It's very emotional and you have a deep sense of sadness and peace," Judith Tizard said.

"The behaviour of the crowd was exemplary. We had a two-minute silence and you could have heard a pin drop. It really was very moving."

She understood the Government felt it necessary to issue a travel warning, but people had obviously made their own assessment and gone.

"We met a number of young New Zealanders who had not come last year because the Iraq conflict had started.

"Many of them said, 'We're going home and we felt this was our last chance'."

The party she was with had come across on a ferry at 4.30am and driven to the Anzac Memorial at North Beach.

"It was very cold and windy, but the dawn broke and you got the most wonderful sense of what the Anzacs must have seen and felt, as suddenly the hills appeared out of the dark and the topmost point above North Beach and Anzac Cove was suddenly out of the dark," Ms Tizard said.

"We've been down to the beach and the water is very cold, so I think of those men 89 years ago and many of them came off the landing craft and were over their heads in water ...

"It was a really strong sense of the sacredness of this place and how important a pilgrimage it is for all three nations."

Because of the security checkpoints the estimate of people attending the service was probably a "reasonable guess", she said.

- NZPA