Turkish Prision Camps

BELEMEDIK: This working prison camp was located in the Vilayet of Adana in southern Anatolia. The facility was located north of the Cilician Tarsus Mountains, near Hadjkiri and the Cilician Gates. The town was approximately twenty-five miles northeast of Adana and twenty-six miles north of Tarsus. The prison was considered to be a model prison camp, supporting labor detachments working on track bed and tunnel construction for the Constantinople to Baghdad Railway. The Turks established operations at the facility by 1916 and it maintained operations throughout the war. The Turks constructed barracks and administrative buildings next to the railroad tracks near a stone hospital. Prisoners had access to a cinema for entertainment. Belemedik served as the main camp for Allied prisoners working in the North Taurus Sector of the Taurus-Amanus Railway line, the primary line of Turkish communications in support of the Mesopotamian Front. Belemedik supported labor detachments working in Kouch Joular (a camp located on top of a hill with British POW's from the Palestinian Front; they constructed four tunnels through the mountains); Tasch Dumas (a camp that had problems with malaria, gastritis, and dysentery epidemics); Hadjkiri; and Gelebek.