Sotiris Tsagkaris

Born in the village of Pelendri¹, Limassol district, in 1925.

He was ambushed near Pelendri on February 17, 1957.

Sotiris Tsagkaris finished the primary school of Pelendri and worked as a cabinetmaker in his village. With the beginning of the Struggle, he joined EOKA together with his siblings and collaborated with the guerrillas of his area as a liaison, transporter of war material and supplier to their mountain hideouts.

On January 25, 1957, Stylianos Lenas led his men to the village of Gerasa², to avoid capture during a large-scale search that the British carried out in his area, also aided by traitors. After he had roughly arranged his guerrillas in old galleries, which were used by shepherds as pens, he returned with Panagiotis Aristidou and set about constructing a hideout in a water hole, between the villages of Potamitissa and Pelendri³, in order to bring his guerrillas back to their sector, to a place that the traitors would not know about.

On February 17, 1957, Lenas was ambushed by the British a short distance from the hole and was captured, seriously wounded. Panagiotis Aristidou, realizing the existence of an army, took Lenas's gun and with great caution managed to break through the soldiers' cordon and head towards Pelendri, to meet Sotiris Tsagkaris. They then set off together to meet the other rebels, who in the meantime had fled the galleries. On their way, they fell into an ambush by the English outside Pelendri. The soldiers opened fire on them and Sotiris Tsagkaris fell dead. Panagiotis Aristidou, falling to the ground, discharged Lenas' gun against the soldiers, whose weapons fell silent and he managed to escape, seriously wounded.