On the 11th April 1822 an army of some 40,000 Ottoman troops began landing on the Greek island of Chios, which is situated just 7 kilometers off the Turkish coastline of Anatolia, with express orders to kill all Christian infants under three years old, all males 12 years and older, and all females 40 and older, except those willing to convert to Islam.
Estimates suggest that up to three quarters of the 120,000 inhabitants were slain, enslaved or died of starvation or disease. With the remainder forced to flee an ethnic cleansing which the Turks were to repeat with their genocide of the Armenians between 1915-1923.
