Yahoo – AFP,
2 Sep 2015
Istanbul
(AFP) - The image of a toddler's lifeless body washed ashore on a Turkish beach
after a migrant boat sank sparked horrified reactions Wednesday as the tragedy
of Europe's burgeoning refugee crisis hit home.
The body of
the little boy could be seen lying face down in the sand near Bodrum, one of
Turkey's prime tourist resorts, before he was picked up by a police officer in
photographs taken by the Dogan news agency.
The hashtag
"#KiyiyaVuranInsanlik" ("Humanity washed ashore") made it
to Twitter's top world trending topics after the image was widely shared.
"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".
The world
silenced
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 Turkish
coastguard said two boats had sunk after separately setting off from Turkey's
Bodrum peninsula for the Greek Aegean island of Kos early Wednesday.
The corpses
of 12 migrants, among them five children and a woman, were found and 15 others
were rescued, some surviving by reaching the shore in life jackets.
The
coastguard, backed by helicopters, was continuing its search for three people
still missing, a statement said.
Dogan said
most of the refugees were from the Syrian Kurdish town of Kobane who fled to
Turkey last year to escape violence by Islamic State (IS) extremists.
Over the
last week, there has been a dramatic spike in the numbers of migrants -- mainly
from Syria, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Africa -- seeking to leave Turkey by sea
for Greece in the hope of finding new lives in the European Union.
This week,
the Turkish government said the coastguard had rescued over 42,000 migrants in
the Aegean Sea in the first five months of 2015 and more than 2,160 in the last
week alone.
A
coastguard official told AFP around 100 people had been rescued by Turkish
rescue teams overnight as they tried to reach Kos.
The United
Nations refugee agency UNHCR says more than 2,500 people have died trying to
cross the Mediterranean so far this year.
Migrants,
many of whom have paid over $1,000 to smugglers for the risky passage, are
taking advantage of the calm summer weather which makes this the best time for
the crossing.
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Latest developments in the European migrant crisis pic.twitter.com/NV1Kyd4kZR
— Agence France-Presse (@AFP) 2 september 2015
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