Tomorrow is bank holiday in south Cyprus and school parades will be held across the Republic on Tuesday to mark Greek resistance against the Axis powers, which resulted in Greece entering WWII.
October 28 commemorates the day the Greek dictator Ioannis Metaxas rejected the ultimatum given by the Italian dictator Benito Mussolini on October 28, 1940, who had demanded the Axis Powers enter Greece to take up strategic positions. Metaxas answered with a single “No”, resulting in Italian forces stationed in then-occupied Albania attacking the country the following day.
In a Greek counter-attack, Italian forces were pushed back into Albania. Nazi Germany intervened a year later, occupying Greece until the end of the Second World War in 1945.
It has been celebrated as “Ochi Day” in both Greece and Cyprus since 1942.
Tuesday’s main parade in Nicosia will start on Stassinou Avenue in Nicosia. It will pass in front of the Greek Embassy, where Education Minister Costas Kadis will take the salute on behalf of President Nicos Anastasiades.
