Migrant boy’s death on beach altered nothing, says his father

THE father of the three-year-old Syrian boy who became a tragic emblem of Europe’s migration crisis when his body was washed up on a Turkish beach last year says his son died for nothing because refugees are still drowning.

The picture of Alan Kurdi’s tiny body near the tourist resort of Bodrum drew the attention of the world to the terrible risks that hundreds of thousands of Syrians, Iraqis and others were taking as they tried to reach the Greek islands from the Turkish coast.

That route has now all but closed due to an EU accord with Turkey to stop the boats from making the crossing, but tens of thousands of migrants are still trying to reach Europe from the A Turkish policeman carries the body of Alan Kurdi off a beach near Bodrum last summer coast of North Africa, with an estimated 700 dying in the past few days alone.

Last night a group of migrants were caught for the first time trying to cross from Greece to Italy. The Greek coastguard said 29 migrants were picked up off the western island of Lefkada as they made their way to Italy. The group, including a four and five-year-old, had been found adrift in the Ionian Sea on Sunday.

The UNHCR warned yesterday that crossings were likely to increase and the loss of life would rise dramatically. A spokesman said: “This is a global crisis and everybody needs to intervene.”

Alan’s father, Abdullah, who also lost his eldest son, Galip, five, and his wife, Rehan, when their rubber dinghy sank, told La Repubblica newspaper: “For a while it seemed that the photograph of Alan had succeeded in affecting public opinion in the West and in the attitudes of politicians. But the news of more boat sinkings and of walls being built along the Balkan route tells me that in reality, beyond the initial emotional reaction, little has changed.”