Officials carry the coffin of Rehan Kurdi, the mother of Syrian boys Aylan, 3, and Galip, 5. There before her was the lifeless body of Aylan Kurdi, a 3-year-old Syrian boy who, along with his brother and mother, had drowned while attempting to flee to Greece. Hours earlier, the 15-foot boat they had been on capsized while en route to the Greek island of Kos.
Nilfer Demir said in an interview that as she approached the lifeless body of a 3-year-old immigrant Syrian boy on a Turkish coastline, she was petrified as she raised her camera. The resulting images have sparked international soul-searching.
Nilfer Demir had witnessed many migrant hardships — including death — over the years, but in the early morning hours on Sept. 2, what she saw on the Turkish shoreline stopped her cold.
There before her was the lifeless body of Aylan Kurdi, a 3-year-old Syrian boy who, along with his brother and mother, had drowned while attempting to flee to Greece. Hours earlier, the 15-foot boat they had been on capsized while en route to the Greek island of Kos.
“At that moment, when I saw the 3-year-old Aylan Kurdi, I was petrified,” Demir said in an interview with Dogan News Agency (DNA), for which she has documented the migrant crisis.
Paramilitary police officers investigate the scene before carrying the lifeless body of Aylan Kurdi, 3.
The image of Aylan — his face into the sand at shore’s edge — was horrifying, but her instincts as a photojournalist took over and she snapped a series of photos that have prompted outrage and an intense period of international soul-searching.
It’s the reaction she wanted. “The only thing I could do was to make his outcry heard,” Demir told DNA. “At that moment, I believed I would be able to achieve this by triggering the shutter of my camera and take his picture.”
In the days since, the world has reacted with outcry, offers of support, and demands to confront the ongoing refugee crisis in Europe, where thousands of Syrians are attempting to flee their war-ravaged country — often with fatal consequence.
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