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@marg*e wrote:

I don't mean to sound heartless, but I don't understand why this child in particular is causing so much disruption, he is far from the first child to die, from drowning, to babies suffocating in lorries, not to mention all the adults, so why is this one little boy a turning point.

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As you say this is not the first child to die in tragic circumstances whilst trying to flee to the West. Maybe I'm a cynic but in my opinion the graphic picture was published so widely in the press throughout the whole of Europe as a form of emotional blackmail, ie to get us on side with the refugees and attempt to make this huge expected influx of Islamic people more acceptable. Every day in the press there are photos of cute wide eyed refugee children to tug at our heartstrings, it's almost a charm offensive to soften us up, Well I for one am not buying into it.

The day after that photo was published in The Independent, the letters page was full of admiring comments to the editor for having the 'bravery' to show what the writers called 'the true reality facing those poor people fleeing tyranny in Syria.' A closer inspection of the facts reveals an entirely different story. The family concerned had not just fled the bombing in Syria but had in fact spent the past three years living in relative safety in Turkey. Admittedly life in a refugee camp is no picnic but has to be infinitely preferable to living in a war zone being regularly bombed by your own government. The child's father had already applied for asylum in Canada where his sister was living but had been refused, clearly the Canadian authorities were under the impression that as he was in a safe zone he was under no immediate threat to life. To then take matters into his own hands and place his wife and children in a small open boat without life jackets seems rather feckless behaviour for any parent. It was his own actions that led to their deaths, there is no blame to be apportioned and no reason for anyone in the West to feel guilty about it.

In the long run the publication of the picture has certainly achieved the desired effect. Cameron made more or less an immediate u-turn, Austria and Germany have opened their collective arms to all and sundry and even the hardline Hungarians who at least were trying to get the incomers registered have now allowed them all free access to the rest of Europe. What is of most concern to me is that there are so many 'unknowns' in this situation. How many are genuine asylum seekers? How many are fleeing religious persecution? How many are just chancers trying it on? How many jihadists are sneaking in under cover of the asylum umbrella?  With so many arriving without any form of identification, how can we answer any of these questions with any level of certainty?