Alan Kurdi

For the first time ever in my journal this is not my photograph but I make no apology for using it in my journal. It was taken by Turkish photographer Nilufer Demir


I hope it marks a change in the world and by adding it here I hope to help spread that change in my own small way


Nilufer Demir, a Turkish press photographer, was snapping a group of Pakistani migrants by the coast when she noticed the lifeless body of Alan Kurdi at the water's edge.

Ms Demir reacted as any photographer would - she clicked her shutter. The starkest image she took - which the BBC has not published - showed the three-year-old Syrian boy lying dead and alone, face down in the sand, his small palms open and upturned.

"I had to take this photo and I didn't hesitate to," she told her agency DHA. "The only thing I could do was to make his outcry heard."
She could not have predicted how loudly that cry would be heard across Europe and beyond. "I never believed a photograph could have such an impact," she said. "I would really like it if it could change the way things are going."

There can be little doubt now that the picture has in some way changed, rather than just documented, the refugee crisis unfolding into Europe

"This picture wasn't taken in a warzone, it wasn't taken in Syria ... The fact that this happened on a beach in Turkey has made people sit up and look.""

It is a quite peaceful picture and in some ways quite respectful, but it makes you think immediately: what could have precipitated this? Why is a toddler dead on a beach?

"He looks like he could be any of our children."

I can only hope that this tragic death prompts a different more humanitarian reaction from the rest of the world to rescue these desperate people risking and losing their lives and loved ones trying to escape this warzone.

Photo courtesy Nilufer Demir
Story courtesy BBC News