Three-year-old Alan Kurdi drowned after the boat his family was on flipped in the Aegean Sea. His five-year-old brother Galib and mother, Rehan, also died.
Photos of the Syrian boy’s body on a Turkish beach Wednesday renewed international attention on the prolonged humanitarian crisis, and how Europe is handling a mass migration of refugees across dangerous waterways.
One human rights activist defended publishing the photos by saying what's really offensive is that children “are washing up on our shorelines.”
Peter Bouchkaert of Human Rights Watch writes:
What struck me the most were his little sneakers, certainly lovingly put on by his parents that morning as they dressed him for their dangerous journey. One of my favorite moments of the morning is dressing my kids and helping them put on their shoes. They always seem to manage to put something on backwards, to our mutual amusement. Staring at the image, I couldn’t help imagine that it was one of my own sons lying there drowned on the beach.
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A refugee hugs her child after arriving on the shores of the Greek island Lesbos in an inflatable dingy across the Aegean Sea from Turkey on Sept. 3. (Angelos Tzortzinis/Getty Images/AFP)
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