Symi

The Dodecanese-bound Blue Star Patmos ferry was forced to return to the port of Piraeus on Tuesday due to a medical emergency concerning a 69-year-old citizen.

The The Blue Star Patmos had embarked from Piraeus and was to make stops at the islands of Patmos, Leipsoi, Leros, Kalymnos, Kos, Symi, and Rhodes.

No details concerning the patient's health have been made available.

One of the Aegean Sea’s finest islands, Symi could be likened to a set of an old Marcello Mastroianni film

Residents and local officials on the Aegean island of Leros on Friday blocked a passenger ferry carrying 40 migrants from Symi from disembarking.
Leros Mayor Michalis Kolias has protested against plans to move more migrants to the island where facilities, originally designed for 800 people, allegedly now hold around 3,000.
The vessel was redirected to Kos.

Authorities and locals on Leros are protesting against plans to move more migrants to the Aegean island.
In comments made to Rodiaki newspaper, Leros Mayor Michalis Kolias said that island facilities currently hold around 3,000 migrants at a capacity of 800.

Despite the ongoing talks on a Europe-wide and diplomatic level on how to assist Greece with the threat of a new crisis looming, migrant flows to the islands are continuing to rise, with 809 people having landed on their shores after traveling from the Turkey coast from Monday until Wednesday noon.

A navy ship carrying 389 refugees and migrants from the southeast Aegean island of Symi docked at the Greek capital's Piraeus port on Wednesday morning.
The asylum-seekers, most of them identified as Afghan nationals, were being taken on buses to unspecified facilities on the Greek mainland.

A navy ship carrying around 500 refugees and migrants from the southeast Aegean island of Symi docked at the Greek capital's Piraeus port on Tuesday morning.

The operation to transfer the migrants to the mainland came in response to an appeal from Symi Mayor Eleftherios Papakalodoukas, who said that his island is unequipped to deal with a surge in arrivals from Turkey.

Around 300 migrants and refugees who arrived from Turkey over the past few days are to be transferred off the southeastern Aegean island of Symi by the end of the week.

The decision comes in response to a number of complaints made by Symi Mayor Eleftherios Papakalodoukas, who has stressed that his island is completely unequipped to host, feed and care for asylum-seekers.

Authorities and residents at Greece's Aegean islands are fuming over the mapping of forestland, saying the process undermines investment and economic growth.
The ongoing mapping of Greece's forests involves the delineation of areas that are entitled to special protection (such as limits on construction) under Greek law. It is set to be completed by 2020.

Authorities on the southeastern Aegean island of Symi are investigating reports of a collision between a small Greek fishing boat and a Turkish luxury yacht on Saturday afternoon that caused the smaller vessel to sink.