 "Three-year-old Syrian refugee, whose body was washed up on a Turkish beach")
A Syrian toddler, who died alongside his brother and mother on a dangerous track across the Mediterranean sea and whose body ended up at one of Turkey’s most luxurious tourist resorts have stirred turbulence and stoked up the refugee and migrant crisis debate.
The toddler, is three-year-old Aylan Kurdi. His brother, five-year-old Galip, and their mother drowned as well. The family had reportedly fled the Syrian town of Kobani on the Turkish border, an area which has seen heavy fighting between Islamic State of Iraq and Levant militants and Kurdish forces, and anti-IS coalition airstrikes.
Their jam-packed rubber boat was heading to the Greek island of Kos, when it overturned leaving most of the asylum seekers dead. None of the boys had life jackets and had little chance to survive the tragedy.
According to the Turkish Dogan news agency, just hours later, another boat tragedy happened that sailed off from the Akyarlar area of the Bodrum peninsula went down. At least four people, including a woman and three children, drowned, while two others with life vests on managed to reach the shore. Twelve people were confirmed dead in the two accidents, while only nine survived and hope of finding the two still missing faded.
When the gut-wrenching images and footage of Aylan's body, being carried from the beach have been shared across all spectrums of social media. After the pictures went public social media exploded with outrage, putting the hashtag “KiyiyaVuranInsanlik” meaning “humanity washed ashore” on top of trending topics on Twitter.
What’s happening in Syria
In an article of Mercy Corps, more than four years after it began, the full-blown civil war has killed over 220,000 people, half of whom are believed to be civilians. Bombings are destroying crowded cities and horrific human rights violations are widespread. Basic necessities like food and medical care are sparse.
The U.N. estimates that 7.6 million people are internally displaced and considering refugees, more than half of the country’s pre-war population of 23 million is in need of urgent humanitarian assistance, whether they still remain in the country or have escaped across the borders.
Where are they fleeing
The majority of Syrian refugees are living in Jordan and Lebanon, which are the region’s two smallest countries, as they have weak infrastructure and limited resources are nearing a breaking point under the strain.
In August 2013, more Syrians escaped into northern Iraq at a newly opened border crossing. Now they are trapped by that country's own insurgent conflict, and Iraq is struggling to meet the needs of Syrian refugees on top of more than one million internally displaced Iraqis — efforts that we are working to support.
An increasing number of Syrian refugees are fleeing across the border into Turkey, overwhelming urban host communities and creating new cultural tensions.Hundreds of thousands of refugees are also attempting the dangerous trip across the Mediterranean Sea from Turkey to Greece, hoping to find a better future in Europe. Not all of them make it across alive. Those who do make it to Greece still face steep challenges — resources are strained by the influx and services are minimal.
How many refugess
The International Organization for Migration (IOM) says that more than 350,000 refugees and migrants arrived at the EU’s borders between January and August 2015. This is compared with the 280,000 migrants who arrived over the whole of 2014.
More than 230,000 people initially arrived in Greece and nearly 115,000 refugees landed in Italy. According to EU border agency Frontex, the largest refugee group in 2015 has come from Syria, followed by Afghanis and Eritrians.
What UN has to Say
According to official figures from the UN refugee agency, UNHCR, over 2,500 refugees and migrants are estimated to have died or gone missing, trying to reach Europe this year so far. Meanwhile, last year some 3,500 people died or were reported missing in the Mediterranean Sea.
The agency said in a statement, “Despite the concerted efforts of the joint European search and rescue operation under FRONTEX, which has saved tens of thousands of lives this year, the Mediterranean Sea continues to be the deadliest route for refugees and migrants .”
According to the UN more than 300,000 people have taken the risky route across the Mediterranean this year, with almost 200,000 arriving in Greece and some 110,000 in Italy, compared to around 219,000 refugees and migrants who crossed the sea during the whole of 2014.
Also read: 2015 UNHCR country operations profile - Syrian Arab Republic
Stand of EU on Syrian refugees
Of the 4 million Syrians who have fled their country since the war began, including hundreds of thousands who have poured into Europe, the number who have been resettled in Britain could fit on a single London Underground train — with plenty of seats to spare.
Just 216 Syrian refugees have qualified for the government’s official relocation program, according to data released last week. (Tube trains seat about 300.) British Prime Minister David Cameron has reassured his anxious public that the total number won’t rise above 1,000.
As Germany prepares for an expected onslaught of 8,00,000 asylum applications this year, the contrast between the two biggest powers in Europe couldn’t be sharper. On a continent, that is supposed to be bound together by a common set of rules and values, the impact of this summer’s migrant crisis is being felt disproportionately by a handful of countries while others, such as Britain, have resisted efforts to more equitably share the burden.
The lack of a consistent pan-EU asylum policy and insufficient arrangements to manage the ever-growing refugee and migrant flows are the main difficulties people face when arriving ashore to the EU or the Union’s bordering countries.
While different member states deal with asylum claims in different ways, under the EU’s Dublin Regulation the first EU country that the migrant reached has the responsibility to examine an asylum seeker's claim.
As Italy states that it is ready to re-impose border controls, Hungary has sealed off its main train station to stop asylum-seekers moving across the EU. Meanwhile Britain is refusing to accept more asylum seekers. To deal with the crisis, 28 EU interior ministers will meet on September 14 in an effort to come up with a common strategy.
