CANBERRA: Traditional crowds at dawn services for the Anzac Day memorial holiday in Australia were replaced with candlelit vigils in driveways and neighbours gathering to listen to buglers play The Last Post.

Restrictions on crowds and social distancing due to the coronavirus meant that the usual packed dawn services in cities and towns across the country were not held on Saturday. The holiday, also celebrated in New Zealand, marks the anniversary of New Zealand and Australian soldiers, known as Anzacs, landing on the Gallipoli Peninsula in 1915.

More than 10,000 soldiers from the two countries were killed during that World War I campaign in whats now Turkey, although Anzac Day honors those killed in all wars.

Visiting the site in Canakkale, northwestern Turkey, has become a pilgrimage for many Australians and New Zealanders to remember their fallen compatriots but the annual dawn service and other commemorative ceremonies were canceled this year to stem the spread of Covid-19.

Early on Saturday, three employees of a local tourism company placed red flowers at the ANZAC Cove memorial in Canakkale.

Published in Dawn, April 26th, 2020