Syrna (; anciently, Syrnos () or Sirna or Agios Ioannis, is a small island about 4 km² in area to the south-east of

Astypalaia Astypalaia (Greek Language, Greek: Αστυπάλαια, ), is a Greece, Greek island with 1,334 residents (2011 census). It belongs to the Dodecanese, an archipelago of fifteen major islands in the southeastern Aegean Sea. However, many scholars ...

in the

Dodecanese The Dodecanese (, ; , ''Dodekánisa'' , ) are a group of 15 larger and 150 smaller Greek islands in the southeastern Aegean Sea and Eastern Mediterranean, off the coast of Anatolia, of which 26 are inhabited. This island group generally define ...

group of

Greek Greek may refer to: Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor of all kno ...

islands, situated to the south-east of the country. It is mostly covered with

juniper Junipers are coniferous trees and shrubs in the genus ''Juniperus'' ( ) of the cypress family Cupressaceae. Depending on the taxonomy, between 50 and 67 species of junipers are widely distributed throughout the Northern Hemisphere as far south ...

and

garrigue Garrigue or garigue ( ), also known as phrygana ( , n. pl.), is a type of low scrubland ecoregion and plant community in the Mediterranean forests, woodlands, and scrub biome. It is found on limestone soils in southern France and around the ...

scrub. The few inhabitants raise livestock, catch fish and practice arable agriculture. The island is important for migrant and breeding seabirds and raptors, including Cory's shearwater, yelkouan shearwater and Eleonora's falcon.

History

A shipwreck of the late Roman period (2nd century CE) was found using sonar technology near the island by the Hellenic Centre for Marine Research in 2000. On 7 December 1946, the ship ''Athina Rafiah'' (originally the SS ''Athena'') carrying Jewish immigrants to Israel was wrecked in the Agiou Soassin Bay, on the south coast of Syrna, and more than seven hundred survivors came ashore on the island. The British minesweeper HMS ''Providence'', working with HMS ''Chevron'', HHMS ''Themistocles'' and HHMS ''Aegean'' managed to rescue the survivors. An extra dimension to the incident is added in a reminiscence by D
Raymond Mills
who, with a medical team, and Lawrence Durrell, was sent from Rhodes on the Greek warship ''Kriti'' (originally HMS ''Hursley'') to assist the sick and wounded and return them to hospital on Rhodes. Mills attests to the added intervention of “the flagship of the Palestine Patrol, HMS ''Javelin'', together with two minesweepers”, and records that eight of the refugees had perished in the aftermath of the wreck and had been buried on the island.‘With Durrell on Rhodes, 1945-47’, by Raymond Mills, in ''Twentieth Century Literature'', Vol. 33, No. 3, Lawrence Durrell Issue, Part 1 (Autumn, 1987), pp. 312–316.

References

Astypalaia Dodecanese Islands of the South Aegean Islands of Greece Landforms of Kalymnos (regional unit) {{SouthAegean-geo-stub