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| Alan Kurdi: two men in court in Turkey over death of Syrian toddler | |
| (about 4 hours later) | |
| Two suspected people smugglers charged with causing the death of five people, including the Syrian toddler Alan Kurdi, have gone on trial in Turkey. | |
| The picture of the three-year-old boy lying face down on a Turkish beach after the dinghy in which he and his family had been travelling capsized sparked outrage across the world in September. | |
| On Thursday Syrian nationals Muwafaka Alabash and Asem Alfrhad went on trial at the criminal court in the Turkish town of Bodrum. Both face charges of people smuggling and causing the death of five people, including Alan Kurdi, his five-year-old brother, Ghalib, and their mother, Rehanna, “through deliberate negligence”. | |
| Related: Stories of 2015: how Alan Kurdi's death changed the world | Related: Stories of 2015: how Alan Kurdi's death changed the world |
| If convicted, they risk up to 35 years in prison. According to Turkish media both men declared their innocence, instead blaming Abdullah Kurdi, Alan’s father. The next hearing will be in March. | |
| Alan Kurdi was one of more than one million people who crossed the Mediterranean last year in a bid to reach Europe, with 3,770 dying on the perilous sea route, according to the International Organisation for Migration (IOM). Since the start of this year, 403 people have already died or gone missing, and that nearly 10 times as many refugees and migrants crossed in the first six weeks of 2016 as in the same period last year. | |
| The images of his death temporarily galvanised public opinion, pressuring European governments to tackle the continent’s refugee crisis. But five months on, Brussels has yet to come up with an effective means of handling the biggest wave of migration to Europe since the second world war. | |
| The Kurdi family, who had came from the Kurdish town of Kobani in northern Syria, were on their way to the Greek island of Kos when the small rubber boat they were travelled in capsized. | |
| For three years preceding the drownings they had lived in poverty in Turkey before deciding to head to Canada, where Abdullah’s sister Tima Kurdi lives. Syrian refugees are not allowed to legally work in Turkey, which forces many to leave. | |
| Turkey, long blamed for turning a blind eye to the people smuggling at its shores, has cracked down on smugglers and irregular border crossings after striking a highly controversial deal with Brussels, under which the EU pledged €3bn (£2.2bn) and political concessions to Ankara in exchange for increased border patrols. | |
| Related: UN says one-third of refugees sailing to Europe are children | Related: UN says one-third of refugees sailing to Europe are children |
| After a joint meeting on Monday between Ahmet Davutoglu, the Turkish prime minister, and Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, Ankara promised to implement a range of measures that aim to diminish the number of refugees coming to the EU. | |
| One such measure would designate human smuggling as a form of organised crime, which would mean harsher punishment for perpetrators. Human rights activists have warned that such crackdowns and tighter border controls will only prompt smugglers to choose riskier routes, which in turn will lead to more deaths. | |