Aylan Kurdi Was 'Message From God to Wake Up the World': Aunt

by SARAH BURKE

A toddler whose body was photographed after washing up on a beach in Turkey was "a message from God to wake up the world" to the plight of Syrian refugees, his aunt said Monday.

Aylan Kurdi, 2, drowned when a boat carrying his family and other migrants capsized in rough seas while traveling from Turkey and Greece earlier this month.An image of Kurdi's body face down in the sand in the Turkish resort of Bodrum beach was met with shock around the world.

More than 3,000 people have died while crossing the Mediterranean Sea this year in search of a better lives in the West — including many fleeing the war in Syria.

"Deeply from my heart, I feel this little Aylan was a message from God to wake up the world," Aylan's aunt Fatima Kurdi said in Brussels as European Union interior ministers gathered in the Belgian city to discuss the migration crisis. "I am the messenger here."

Europe's leaders remain bitterly divided over how to distribute refugees around the continent, with some countries refusing to accept quotas specified by Brussels.

Demonstrators mocked the European response to the influx of migrants. Activists dressed up as caricatures of European leaders, wearing masks and standing between a symbolic wall and a barbed-wire fence.

Handwritten slogans on the wall read "No Borders" and "No One Is Illegal."

"It's absolutely terrible. You cannot close the door for those desperate people. They flee the war," said Kurdi, who lives in Canada. "People … can and they should build a better, a longer table, not the higher fence."

Kurdi paid tribute to her nephew by signing the wall and leaving a message in both English and Arabic, reading: "Rest in peace."

Burke, Sarah. 14 Sept. 2015. "Aylan Kurdi Was 'Message From God to Wake Up the World': Aunt". NBC News. 15 Sept. 2015.

The person interviewed in this article was the victim's aunt, the victim being Aylan Kurdi, a little boy who had died on the Mediterranean Sea about a month ago while trying to cross the European border with his family. I feel like both the author and the readers of this article are bound to be biased against Europe because it's seen as the "bad guy" in the picture as a whole. The mocking of Europeans by the activists is a clear picture of how Europe is seen by the world, especially by those in hard times and are victims of the European border crisis. I can relate more with the middle easterners that are suffering double time with all the war and the European border crisis on top of that. I think Europe should open their hearts and eyes and see that even little children like Aylan Kurdi, a toddler, are dying due to their stances. I feel like if Europe and the Middle East countries came to agreement on the whole border crisis, they both would be much happier than they are currently, because there wouldn't be as many lives lost, and there wouldn't be so much hate directed towards Europe.