Tiny victim of a human catastrophe
Cradled in the arms of a Turkish policeman, this little boy was drowned during his refugee family’s desperate bid to reach Greece. The image could not be more harrowing – but must be seen to comprehend the gravity of the migrant crisis engulfing Europe
A LIFELESS toddler is carried across a tourist beach by a Turkish guard yesterday, his tiny body a heart-rending symbol of the human cost of the refugee crisis engulfing Europe.
Further along the shore, the grimfaced officer retrieves another body, that of the toddler’s five- year- old brother, from the water’s edge.
The boys were washed up by the waves after their parents’ desperate gamble on reaching the EU failed.
The images, some showing the brothers lying face down on the beach at Bodrum, went around the globe – becoming the most harrowing symbol of the ever- escalating migrant crisis and fuelling the international debate on how the world responds.
At least 13 people drowned when two dinghies carrying refugees from Syria capsized in the Mediterranean, where more than 2,500 migrants have perished this year.
The brothers, named locally as three-yearold Aylan Kurdi and his brother Galip, were on one of the overcrowded boats that sank just 30 minutes into the 13-mile journey from Bodrum to the Greek island of Kos.
Neither boy was wearing a lifejacket – a rare commodity on the migrant boats – and their Syrian Kurdish parents could not save them. Their mother also died.
The boys’ bodies, still clad in bright Tshirts and shorts, were washed on to the beach at the tourist resort of Bodrum where policemen gently carried them ashore, cradled in their arms.
The refugees were said to come from the border town of Kobane. They fled Syria last year to escape Islamic State troops.
The unbearably poignant images of the children’s bodies lying on the beach were immediately flashed around the world on social media and prompted calls for Europe’s politicians to end months of political wrangling and do more to help those caught in the crisis.
The pictures, released by a Turkish news agency, trended worldwide on Twitter under #KiyiyaVuranInsanlik, meaning ‘humanity washed ashore’.
The brothers’ boat was said to have been carrying 16 people, of whom eight died and another four were missing. Their mother Rihan, 35, and an unrelated eight-year-old child were among the eight who drowned.
Only four people are known to have survived, including the brothers’ distraught father Abdullah.
The boat was one of a dozen dinghies attempting the crossing. A second sank minutes later, killing a second pair of brothers.
Zainb Ahmet-Haid, 11, and his nine-yearold brother Hayder drowned. Their sevenyear-old sister Rowad and mother Zeynep survived.
A survivor from one of the boats, Omer Mohsin, said 175 people had been crammed on to 12 boats after paying 2,050 euros (£1,500) each to unscrupulous people traffickers.
Mr Mohsin, whose brother Bekir was among the dead, said: ‘The boat was meant for ten people and we were 16.
‘It sank almost as soon as we reached the open water, but it was pitch black. Those that couldn’t swim didn’t stand a chance.’
Five Turkish coastguard boats an air sea rescue helicopter and a spotter plane all raced to the scene at dawn after eyewitness reports of bodies floating in the sea.
The coastguard confirmed that none of the boats had made it to Kos – all turned back to the Turkish shore.
The beaches of Bodrum, packed with sunbathing tourists during the day, become unrecognisable at night as families from the Middle East and Africa prepare to risk the short journey to Kos.
Some men clutch inflatable rubber rings designed for children, others wear substandard lifejackets peddled by local shopkeepers who have been quick to cash in on the crisis.
While tourists, many of them British, eat and drink at Bodrum’s smart waterfront restaurants, groups of migrants hold their meagre belongings as they to be loaded into boats by smugglers.
It is unclear how many have died trying to cross to Kos, a comparatively safe route.
In the past year, Turkey has increased patrols in the Aegean by 50 per cent, according to the government.
Migrants who are caught sleeping on the streets, or who are suspected of waiting for boats to take them to the islands, are taken to refugee camps, officials say. But the measures appear to be achieving little, with around 7,000 migrants, mainly Syrians, reaching Kos in July – twice as many as in June. Aid agencies estimate that around 2,000 people a day crossed from Turkey to the Greek islands in rubber dinghies during August.
The route they take sees them fleeing from war-torn Syria into Turkey and crossing to Greece before heading north through the Balkans and Hungary to reach Northern Europe.
Tens of thousands more have crossed the Mediterranean from North Africa to Italy and humanitarian organisations have called it the biggest movement of migrants since the Second World War. A Norwegian boat said it had rescued 800 migrants, including 11 pregnant women and more than 30 children, from capsized boats off the coast of Libya.
In Greece, the coastguard said it had rescued more than 1,000 people from the sea in 28 separate incidents between Tuesday and yesterday morning.
More than 200,000 migrants have arrived on Greece’s shores so far this year and the government has warned its eastern islands have been inundated.
It chartered two ferries to transport 4,300 people from Lesbos to
‘Sank as soon as we reached open water’
Athens in an attempt to speed up the registration process for refugees arriving in Europe.
Separately, police found 103 migrants, including 19 children, hidden in a truck heading from Greece’s border with Turkey towards the northern city of Thessaloniki.
Traffickers charged the Syri- ans 2,000 euros (£1,470) each to transport them in the cramped truck from Turkey to Greece and on to Macedonia. Six suspected people smugglers were arrested.
Greece’s migration minister Yannis Mouzalas called on other EU countries to do more to ‘absorb’ the huge numbers of people involved. The crisis has polarised opinion in Europe, with countries including Italy and Greece warning they cannot cope with the influx while others, such as Germany, have eased immigration procedures to accept more refugees.
A model who rescued a drowning Syrian refugee with her speedboat off Kos has invited him to live with her family.
Greek actress and model Sandra Tsiligeridu was photographed embracing Mohammed Besmar after pulling him from the sea following a 13- hour ordeal in the water.
The picture quickly went viral on social media.