Natasha Bertrand, Business Insider
The image of a drowned Syrian toddler washed up on a Turkish beach that was shared widely on social media Wednesday has caught the attention of newspapers and politicians around the world. British publications The Independent, Metro, and The Sun featured the photo on their covers Thursday morning, as did the New York Daily News and The Wall Street Journal. Publications everywhere from Brazil to Turkey featured the photo as well.
The Daily Telegraph featured a different photo of a border guard holding a crying refugee child with the headline, "Plight of migrant children stirs Europe’s conscience." The photo has gripped the world and prompted questions about why European governments aren’t doing more to equitably share the burden of refugees flooding into the region.
Politicians have been quick to respond, either lamenting the crisis or assigning blame.
NY Daily News
"European countries, which turned the Mediterranean Sea — the cradle of ancient civilisations — into a migrant cemetery are party to the crime that takes place when each refugee loses their life," Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan said in a speech in Ankara on Thursday morning.
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, meanwhile, called the crisis a "German problem" and said Syrians must "stay in Turkey," warning that the refugees threaten Europe’s "Christian roots."
Europe cannot "get emotional" about the crisis, but must "act decisively," Italian prime minister Matteo Renzi said at a press conference.
The Canadian government has come under fire for not granting asylum to the pictured boy and his family, who had applied earlier this year. Canada’s Citizenship and Immigration Minister, Chris Alexander, has reportedly suspended his own reelection campaign for a seat in parliament.
The boy in the photo was one of five children who drowned heading from Turkey’s Aegean coast to Greece, Reuters reported, a route frequented by refugees fleeing a brutal civil war that has killed or displaced more than half of Syria’s population in just under five years.
The Sun
Today, Syria is the single biggest source of refugees in the world. More than 3 million refugees have poured into Turkey and Lebanon, where refugee camps are becoming increasingly overcrowded and unlivable.
As the condition of the camps deteriorates, many are seeking safe passage to the EU via Greece, Macedonia, and Serbia. More than 2,500 people have died trying.
Refugees seeking asylum in Europe face the added risk of being turned away. After being refused entry on to trains bound for Austria, refugees in Budapest were finally allowed to board Thursday morning. They didn’t make it far before Hungarian police stopped the train and forced the refugees to get off in a town with a refugee camp — exactly what the asylum seekers have been desperate to avoid.
After violent clashes broke out between Macedonian police and refugees earlier this month, Macedonia declared a state of emergency and sealed its borders. A fence was erected on the Serbian border at the request of Orban, the Hungarian prime minister.
The Wall Street Journal
"Britain takes in so few refugees from Syria they would fit on a subway train," according to The Washington Post — a statistic that prompted criticism from Germany, which has taken in nearly half of all refugees seeking asylum in Europe since the war began.
Cameron had said on Wednesday that he thought the solution to the migrant crisis was to bring stability to the Middle East, not for Britain to grant more refugees asylum.
“I have always had sympathy and understanding for the British role in the EU and the demands for renegotiation,” Stephan Mayer, an ally of German Chancellor Angela Merkel, told The Times.
“But we are now in such a huge humanitarian catastrophe, I do not have any sympathy or understanding for one-country-orientated positions.”
Austria, too, is demanding Britain take in more refugees.
"We cannot be the generation that fails this test of humanity. We must do all we can," tweeted Nicola Blackwood, a member of Prime Minister David Cameron’s Conservative party.
The crisis is escalating as the Syrian civil war enters its fifth year.
The regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad regularly targets neighborhoods and areas where civilians are known to congregate, such as hospitals, schools, and playgrounds.
The US, which has taken in fewer than 1,000 Syrian refugees since the war began, has criticized Assad and called for him to relinquish power.
