The island of Syrna is a small island of approximately four quare kilometers south east of Astypalaia and is part of the Dodekanese group of islands.
The island of Syrna has been abandoned for some decades now but it is still used intermittently for farming and fishermen come by on 3-4 day fishing trips out of Kefalos as there is plenty of fish to be caught. There are a couple of churches which are kept in relatively good condition: The chapel of Aghios Georgios and the chapel of Aghios Ioannis.
There are a couple of shipwrecks of note around the island.
One of them is of roman galleon on which nost notably some 35.000 bronze coins of the late 3rd century A.C. were found.
The other one, named Athina Rafiah, met its tragic end a little after the war as it was illegally carrrying Jewish refugees headed for Palestine from Yougoslavia. The British at the time were trying to limit the flow of refugees as it was causing them troubles in the region so the Athina had to evade detection. The ship was supposed to pickup some crew membbers on the island of Syrna but the weather was foul and the ship ended up hittings some rocks on December the 7th 1946. Out of the 785 refugees 8 drowned that day and were buried on the island. At that time there were 8 people living on the island of Syrna and although they tried to help as much as they could it was deemed necessary to request help from the British. The RAF parachuted some food and three days later three ships came along to pick up the refugees.