Albanian beys and religious leaders.. A limited number of Muslim Chams enlisted in Albanian and Greek resistance units in the last stages of World War II. Collaboration with the Axis fueled resentment by the Greek side and in the aftermath of World War II, despite the assurances of the EDES guerillas, and in particular the position of Napoleon Zervas who guaranteed that life, personal worth and wealth would be honored, most of the Muslim Cham community fled, or were forced to flee, to Albania. The collaboration, which was also the outcome of Greek totalitarian regime's policy embedded in the prevailing nationalistic ideology of the interwar period, served as a justification for their expulsion. In the process between 200 and 300 Chams were massacred by EDES forces in various settlements, while 1,200 were murdered in total. Some Albanian sources increase this number to c. 2,000. However, atrocities were not encouraged by the EDES leadership and the British mission, but both were unable to prevent them. Generally, violent incidents against Muslim Cham civilians were severely limited because the EDES leadership managed to impose discipline on its subordinate members. In 1945–1946, a special collaborator's court in Greece condemned a total of 2,109 Cham Albanians in absentia for collaboration with the Axis powers and war crimes. Several local Greek notables promised safe passage and offered to host all those Chams who would abandon the Nazi side. As such, a few hundred Muslim Chams stayed in Greece. Moreover, according to Albanian sources an additional 2,500 Muslim Cham refugees lost their lives through starvation and epidemics on their way to Albania. After the members of the community settled in Albania, the People's Republic of Albania and the ruling Party of Labour of Albania under Enver Hoxha did not treat them as victims, but took a very distrustful view towards them and proceeded with arrests and exiles. The Cham Albanians were labelled as "reactionaries", "murderers of the Greeks" and "collaborators of the occupation forces", and suffered a certain degree of persecution within Albania, because their elites were traditionally rich landlords, they had collaborated with the Axis forces and they had been involved in anti-communist activities. Background Ottoman period Albanian presence in the area of Chameria, in coastal parts of Epirus, is recorded since at least the 13th century. A Venetian document cites an Albanian population inhabiting the area opposite the island of Corfu in 1210, while the