An image of a drowned toddler washed up on the beach in one of Turkey’s prime tourist resorts swept across social media after at least 12 presumed Syrian refugees died trying to reach the Greek island of Kos.
More than 230,000 refugees and migrants have arrived in Greece by sea this year, a huge rise from 17,500 in the same period in 2014, according to deputy shipping minister Nikos Zois
More than 80 percent of the arrivals, recorded by the coastguard, are refugees eligible for political asylum, he added.”It’s an exponential rise — I don’t know how anyone could prepare for it,” Zois told a press conference.
The picture that captivated the wolrd showed a little boy wearing a bright red t-shirt and shorts lying face-down in the surf on a beach near the resort town of Bodrum. In a second image, a grim-faced policeman carries the body away.
Turkish media identified the boy as 3-year-old Aylan Kurdi, whose 5-year-old brother died on the same boat. Media reports said 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 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, a senior Turkish naval official said.
The confirmed dead included five children and one 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.
The army said its search and rescue teams had saved hundreds of migrants in the seas between Turkey and Greek islands over the last few days.
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.
Aid agencies estimate that, over the past month, about 2,000 people a day have been making the short crossing to Greece’s eastern islands on rubber dinghies.
Meanwhile asylum seekers have scuffled with riot police while others threw themselves onto train tracks and fled as authorities tried to take them to a reception centre in Hungary, attempting to end a standoff that has become symbolic of a European asylum system brought to breaking point.
Riot police ordered them off, but many asylum seekers resisted, laying on the railway line or fleeing. Some wrestled with police, trying to get back on board.With the government promising to close the country off to migrants by September 15, chaos broke out after a train bound for Hungary’s border with Austria was stopped some 35 kilometres outside of Budapest in the town of Bicske, where Hungary has an asylum seeker reception centre.