Greece's emptying island

FINANCIAL MELTDOWN: FAMED REGION SUFFERS STEADY DEPOPULATION

» It had 39 inhabitants in 2021, down from 120 in 2011.

When winter draws in on Antikythera, the already meagre population of the isolated Greek island shrinks to almost nothing.

“There are 20 to 25 of us, no children, no bakery,” said local leader Giorgos Harhalakis, who is fighting an uphill battle to revive the small Aegean island's fortunes.

“I’m not giving up,” he said.

A speck of land between the islands of Kythera and Crete, Antikythera, like many rural regions in Greece, has suffered steady depopulation.

When the last national census was held in 2021, it had just 39 inhabitants, down from 120 in 2011.

Harhalakis still remembers his first years at primary school in the 1990s, before his family, like others, was forced by “financial problems” to move to the mainland. At the time, the island was home to “farmers, fishermen and cattle breeders” and had around 15 communities, he said.