Syrna ( el, Σύρνα; anciently, Syrnos ( grc, Σύρνος)
or Sirna or Agios Ioannis, is a small island about 4 km
2 in area to the south-east of
Astypalaia
Astypalaia (Greek: Αστυπάλαια, ), is a Greek island with 1,334 residents (2011 census). It belongs to the Dodecanese, an archipelago of fifteen major islands in the southeastern Aegean Sea.
The island is long, wide at the most, and ...
in the
Dodecanese
The Dodecanese (, ; el, Δωδεκάνησα, ''Dodekánisa'' , ) are a group of 15 larger plus 150 smaller Greek islands in the southeastern Aegean Sea and Eastern Mediterranean, off the coast of Turkey's Anatolia, of which 26 are inhabited ...
group of
Greek
Greek may refer to:
Greece
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 ...
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, from the Arc ...
and
garrigue
Garrigue or garigue ( ), also known as phrygana ( el, φρύγανα , 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 ...
scrub. The few inhabitants raise stock, catch fish and practice arable agriculture. The island is important for migrant and breeding seabirds and
raptors, including
Cory's shearwater
Cory's shearwater (''Calonectris borealis'') is a large shearwater in the seabird family Procellariidae. It breeds colonially of rocky islands in the eastern Atlantic. Outside the breeding season it ranges widely in the Atlantic. It was formerl ...
,
yelkouan shearwater
upright=0.8, Egg of the yelkouan shearwater
The yelkouan shearwater, Levantine shearwater or Mediterranean shearwater (''Puffinus yelkouan'') is a medium-sized shearwater in the seabird family Procellariidae. It was formerly treated as a subsp ...
and
Eleonora's falcon
Eleonora's falcon (''Falco eleonorae'') is a medium-sized falcon. It belongs to the hobby group, a rather close-knit number of similar falcons often considered a subgenus ''Hypotriorchis''. The sooty falcon is sometimes considered its closest re ...
.
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
Lawrence George Durrell (; 27 February 1912 – 7 November 1990) was an expatriate British novelist, poet, dramatist, and travel writer. He was the eldest brother of naturalist and writer Gerald Durrell.
Born in India to British colonial p ...
, 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
Dodecanese
Islands of the South Aegean
Islands of Greece
Landforms of Kalymnos (regional unit)
{{SouthAegean-geo-stub