On the night of January 11, 1801, Ali Pasha of Ioannina ordered 18 Greek women drowned in Lake Pamvotida. Among them was...

On the night of January 11, 1801, Ali Pasha of Ioannina ordered 18 Greek women drowned in Lake Pamvotida. Among them was Kyra Frosyni, one of the most celebrated women in the city, along with 17 others who were loaded onto boats, bound, and thrown into the freezing water. Accounts from the time describe some women praying as they went into the lake, others screaming for help that never came. One version holds that the women were sealed inside sacks before being thrown overboard. Another says Frosyni and her servant, refusing to wait, jumped into the water themselves while still bound. One of the executioners present that night later said he had witnessed many acts of torture in his life, but that he could never forget the faces of those women in the water. He reportedly woke for years afterward hearing their screams. The bodies washed ashore in the days that followed and were buried as the city erupted in outrage. Ali Pasha's response to the public fury was cold and unrepentant. He told those protesting that the women could have been spared if even a single family member had come forward in time. The homes of all 18 women were then sealed by his order and their property seized by the state. The massacre took place 225 years ago and remains one of the darkest episodes of Ottoman rule in Greek lands. Kyra Frosyni has since become a symbol of Greek suffering and resistance under Ali Pasha's reign, her story passed down through folk songs and oral history across generations. #GreekHistory #KyraFrosyni #Ioannina