Mecit Çetinkaya was born in 1912 (H.1328) in Kelkit, in the east of Anatolia. When he was only 5 years old, his father Abdullah Efendi, one of the notables of the village, his mother Havva Hanım, his brothers Melek, Fatma, Felek, Nigar, Mustafa and his uncle İbrahimin, were killed in front of his eyes, as the youngest of the family, when the Armenian gangs raided their villages.