ANKARA: An image of a drowned toddler washed up on the beach in one of Turkey’s prime tourist resorts swept across social media yesterday after at least 12 presumed Syrian refugees died trying to reach the Greek island of Kos. The image sparked horrified reactions as the tragedy of Europe’s burgeoning refugee crisis hit home.
The picture showed a little boy wearing a bright red T-shirt and shorts lying face-down in the surf on a beach near the resort town of Bodrum. In a second image, a grim-faced policeman carries the body away. Turkish media identified the boy as 3-year-old Aylan Kurdi, whose 5-year-old brother died on the same boat. Media reports said he was from the north Syrian town of Kobani near the Turkish border, scene of heavy fighting between Islamic State insurgents and Kurdish regional forces a few months ago.
Hashtag “KiyiyaVuranInsanlik” — “humanity washed ashore” — became the top trending topic on Twitter. In the first few hours after the accident, the image had been retweeted thousands of times.
“The harrowing image that shows the true tragedy of the refugee crisis,” read a headline in Britain’s Daily Telegraph, while the Guardian said the photo “brought home” the horror of the situation. “If these extraordinarily powerful images of a dead Syrian child washed up on a beach don’t change Europe’s attitude to refugees, what will?” The Independent said.
The Huffington Post’s UK edition said: “Do Something, David” — a reference to Prime Minister David Cameron who has pursued a hard line against migrant arrivals. The image appeared on the website of Spain’s El Pais, El Mundo and El Periodico, which titled the photo “The drowning of Europe”. In Italy, the La Repubblica daily tweeted the image saying: “One photo to silence the world.”
The boy is believed to be one of at least 12 Syrian migrants who died trying to reach Greece when their boats sank in Turkish waters. The corpses of 12 migrants, among them five children and a woman, were found and 15 others were rescued. The coastguard was continuing its search for three people still missing, a statement said.
Reuters/AFP
