Troubling Images Of Drowned Syrian Boy Washed Upon The Shore – We Could Stop, But We Won’t
On Wednesday, the shocking image of a drowned Syrian toddler’s lifeless boy washed up on the beach in one of the Turkey’s prime tourist resorts went viral,shared by flocks of people on social media users around the world.
The image features a little boy wearing a bright red t-shirt and shorts, whose face lying down in the sand on a beach near the resort town of Bodrum. In other photo the little boy was picked up by a Turkish police official.
At least 12 presumed Syrian refugees died trying to reach the Greek island of Kos. According to the reports of the Turkish media, it is identified that the 3-year-old boy as Aylan Kurdi,and his 5-year-old were been among 12 refugees who drowned when their boat sank while travelling to Greek island of Kos. As per the reports of the media, 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.
The hashtag “KiyiyaVuranInsanlik” – “humanity washed ashore” – became the top most trending topic on Twitter. In the first few hours after the accident, the image had been retweeted thousands of times.
“The two boats, carrying a total of 23 people, had set off separately from the Akyarlar area of the Bodrum peninsula,” said a senior Turkish naval official.
The Turkish naval officials confirmed that the dead included 5 children and woman. Seven people were rescued and two reached the shore in life jackets. The official said hopes were fading of saving the two people still missing.
Over the last few days, hundreds of migrants in the seas between Turkey and Greek islands were saved by the army search and rescue teams. Tens of thousands of Syrians fleeing the war in their homeland have descended on Turkey’s Aegean coast this summer to board boats to Greece, their gateway to the European Union.
In a statement late on Wednesday, Turkey’s National Security Council voiced concern over the immigration policies of European countries.
“European countries’ worrying approach to the flow of migrants has caused sorrow and it has been evaluated that the issue should be taken up in a basic human rights perspective.” the statement said.
“Almost 100 people in all had been rescued by Turkish vessels overnight as they tried to reach Kos,” said the official.
According to the estimations of the Aid agencies, over the past month, about 2,000 people a day have been making the short crossing to Greece’s eastern islands on rubber dinghies. “A ship bringing about 1,800 migrants and refugees from one of the islands arrived at the port of Piraeus near Athens on Tuesday night,” says the Greek coastguard.
“Thousands of people, mainly Africans, have also been trying to reach Europe via boat from Libya to Italy. Four bodies had been pulled from the central Mediterranean on Tuesday and 781 migrants rescued, mostly from Nigeria, Ivory Coast and Senegal,” said the United Nations refugee agency UNHCR.