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source: Mail & Guardian Africa
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Young boy found lying
face-down on a beach near Turkish resort of Bodrum was one of at least 12
Syrians who drowned attempting to reach Greece. The full horror of the
human tragedy unfolding on the shores of Europe was brought home on Wednesday
as images of the lifeless body of a young boy – one of at least 12 Syrians who
drowned attempting to reach the Greek island of Kos – encapsulated the
extraordinary risks refugees are taking to reach the west.
The
picture, taken on Wednesday morning, depicted the dark-haired toddler, wearing
a bright-red T-shirt and shorts, washed up on a beach, lying face down in the
surf not far from Turkey’s fashionable resort town of Bodrum.
A
second image portrays a grim-faced policeman carrying the tiny body away.
Within hours it had gone viral becoming the top trending picture on Twitter
under the hashtag #KiyiyaVuranInsanlik (humanity washed ashore).
Mail & Guardian Africa report continues:
Turkish
media identified the boy as three-year-old Aylan Kurdi and reported that his
five-year-old brother had also met a similar death. Both had reportedly hailed
from the northern Syrian town of Kobani, the site of fierce fighting between
Islamic state insurgents and Kurdish forces earlier this year.
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Image
source: Mail & Guardian Africa
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Justin
Forsyth, chief executive of Save the Children, said: “This tragic image of a
little boy who’s lost his life fleeing Syria is shocking and is a reminder of
the dangers children and families are taking in search of a better life. This
child’s plight should concentrate minds and force the EU to come together and
agree to a plan to tackle the refugee crisis.”
Greek
authorities, coping with what has become the biggest migration crisis in living
memory, said the boy was among a group of refugees escaping Islamic State in
Syria.
Turkish
officials, corroborating the reports, said 12 people died after two boats
carrying a total of 23 people, capsized after setting off separately from the
Akyarlar area of the Bodrum peninsula. Among the dead were five children and a
woman. Seven others were rescued and two reached the shore in lifejackets but
hopes were fading of saving the two people still missing.
The
casualties were among thousands of people, mostly Syrians, fleeing war and the
brutal occupation by Islamic fundamentalists in their homeland.
Kos
, facing Turkey’s Aegean coast, has become a magnet for people determined to
reach Europe. An estimated 2,500 refugees, also believed to be from Syria,
landed on Lesbos on Wednesday in what local officials described as more than 60
dinghies and other “unseaworthy” vessels.
Some
15 000 refugees are in Lesbos awaiting passage by cruise ship to Athens’
port of Piraeus before continuing their journey northwards to Macedonia and up
through Serbia to Hungary and Germany.
“The
situation on the islands is dramatic in terms of the sheer numbers flowing in,
lack of shelter and ever worsening hygiene conditions,” Ketty Kehayioy, the
UNHCR’s spokeswoman in Athens told the Guardian. “The absence of staff to
conduct registrations is creating enormous bottlenecks on Lesvos and Kos which
is further exacerbating substandard conditions, conditions themselves worsened
by very limited facilities.”
Local
NGO’s and volunteers, working around-the-clock to support insufficient state
services now stretched to breaking point, described the situation as “utterly
overwhelming.”
Wednesday’s
dead were part of a grim toll of some 2,500 people who have died this summer
attempting to cross the Mediterranean to Europe, according to the UN refugee
agency, UNHCR.
Athens’
caretaker government, in power until elections are held on 20 September,
announced emergency measures to facilitate the flow after meeting in urgent
session under the prime minister, Vassiliki Thanou .
The
migration minister, Yiannis Mouzalas, said the measures would aim to improve
conditions both for refugees and residents on islands such as Kos and Lesbos.
Conditions
on islands have become increasingly chaotic with local officials voicing fears
over the outbreak of disease amid rising levels of squalor.
“The
problem is very big,” said Mouzalas, a doctor who is also a member of the
Doctors of the World aid organisation. “If the European Union doesn’t intervene
quickly to absorb the populations … if the issue isn’t internationalised on a
UN level, every so often we will be discussing how to avoid the crisis,” he
told reporters, insisting that the thousands risking their lives to flee
conflict were refugees. “There is no migration issue, remove that – it is a
refugee issue,” he said.
The
UNHCR calculates that some 205 000 Europe-bound refugees have entered
Greece, mostly via its outlying Aegean isles, this year alone. The vast
majority (69%) are Syrians, Afghans (18%), Iraqis and Somalis fleeing conflict
in their countries.
In
Hungary’s capital, meanwhile, where the authorities reversed their position and
moved to stop migrants travelling to Germany and other western EU countries,
hundreds continued to protest at Keleti station. Tensions rose throughout the
day as the number of mainly young men swelled to over 2 000.
With
police blocking their path into Budapest’s main international train station,
the crowds chanted, “No police! No police!” and “Germany! Germany!”
Passions
also flared on Hungary’s border with Serbia as rightwing nationalist protesters
marched to the location where migrants use a train track to walk into the
country. Police formed protective circles around frightened migrants as the
demonstrators screamed abuse at them.
“We
have to reinstate law and order at the borders of the European Union, including
the border with Serbia,” Hungarian government spokesman Zoltan Kovacs said.
“Without re-establishing law and order, it will be impossible to handle the
influx of migrants.”
He said Hungary’s Prime
Minister, Viktor Orban, would take a “clear and obvious message” to a meeting
in Brussels on Thursday with EU chiefs about the migration crisis.
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