And you of course Stirling would never seek to stoop so low as to try and score ideological points out of the tragedy of a child's death...

"A YouTube video posted yesterday by a UKIP supporter claims that the Syrian boy who was washed up on a Turkish beach drowned because ‘his father wanted new teeth.' The video has so far been viewed over 400,000 times and also posted by far-right groups.

The video shows a clip from a short Sky News interview to which has been added (not by Sky News) an opening title stating, ‘Syrian boy drowned because his Father wanted new teeth’.

In the brief Sky interview, the boy’s aunt said that that her brother, the little boy’s father, had lost all his teeth. He would need implants, and she was trying to help him, but it would cost a lot of money which she couldn’t send in one go. She explained that the idea was that the family should go to Europe for his kids and a better future, and then they could see about fixing his teeth.

According to news reports, the father had been kidnapped and tortured during the siege of Kobani by Islamic State or another jihadist group, and it's claimed that all of his teeth had been pulled or knocked out. (I am seeking verification of these reports)

I have watched the 2-minute video clip several times and have to ask: why does the father's need for dental treatment change anything about the story of this family's desperate bid to find a place to resettle? How can anyone conclude from this short interview that the little boy, 3-year-old Alan Kurdi, drowned because his father, Abdullah, needed his teeth fixed?

...The family were hoping eventually to start a new life in Canada as they were desperate to leave Turkey, where they had sought refuge for three years, but Turkey wouldn’t let them have exit visas.

The father, Abdullah Kurdi, had first gone on his own to Turkey for a job, leaving behind his wife and 2-year-old son Ghalib and yet-to-be-born Alan at their family home in Kobani. But later Kobani was overrun by ISIS terrorists; a relative of the family was beheaded and the family home was hit by a mortar shell and completely destroyed. Abdullah went to fetch his wife, Rehanna, son Ghalib and newly born Alan to flee Kobani and seek refuge back in Turkey.

Earlier this year ISIS was driven out of Kobani, but this summer ISIS resumed its attacks on the city.

In Turkey the family joined 2.5 million other Syrian refugees, representing the world’s biggest refugee population. The circumstances in Turkey for Syrian refugees is reported to be very difficult.

According to a recent BBC report, Syrian families are forced to live on the streets and many refugees feel there is no future for them there. Large numbers consider they have no option but to take desperate, hazardous measures to escape across the sea, as eventually would the Kurdi family.

As the Kurdi family did not have passports, they were reported to have to register at a ‘temporary protection shelter’ and were not permitted to leave the country. So the family were in a kind of limbo - unable to obtain exit visas from Turkey because they lacked passports, and unable to win asylum elsewhere because they lacked exit visas. It appeared that if they were to leave Turkey it would have to be by illicit means.

The family wanted to escape from Turkey to find a life somewhere else, somewhere better; that’s what many refugees understandably seek to do after weeks, months and often years living in stasis as ‘displaced persons’, where conditions are tough, often with no home-life, no legitimate jobs, no future, no prospects and mostly with no legal or hopeful means of 'moving on'...

...I fail to see how this tragic story of a war-torn desperate Syrian family trying firstly to seek safe refuge in Turkey, and then to seek a new life somewhere else, is at all demeaned, diminished or changed by the fact that the father also required dentistry.

I feel sad that a video has been distributed that tries to undermine the plight, and death, of a family caught up in the most awful, tragic circumstances."

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Edited by legaleagle (06 Sep 2015 10.17am)

I don't understand why a picture of a little boy drowned on a beach trumps a report of 71 people, including 4 children suffocated in an airtight re-fridgerated van.

That picture changes nothing.

The "west" will need to intervene more strongly in Syria (and other war torn countries) to return these countries to normality and stem the tide of genuine refugees and the more numerous economic migrants who are just milking a desperate situation to better their lives by heading to their destination of choice.

Countries like Germany are just encouraging more economic migrants by announcing targets of 800,000 places available.

For me Cameron has got it right by offering to take refugees from Syria currently in the camps based there, most of which our aid has funded.

I second that. Every time it gets pointed out that these people become migrants once they have reached the first safe country they get to it seems to be ignored by some people and the pseudo political point scoring starts again.

But why would we want to transform the lives of thousands of people in life and death situations when it might marginally bite into the booze budget of those lucky enough to be born here?

Of course I'm being facetious, but my central point is that it makes a much bigger difference to help, by fighting ISIS and 'also' doing our bit taking refugees in, than it does not bothering.

Edited by oldcodger (06 Sep 2015 11.46am)

This country is helping, and more than most.

Let Germany, Sweden and whoever else believes in 'freedom of movement' take them in.

We will take a set asylum number and no more.

We can't house our own.

'Who are you and how did you get in here? I'm a locksmith. And, I'm a locksmith.' (Leslie Nielsen)

tell you who has been let off lightly. Bloody Putin. If he hadn't been so obstructive and supportive of Assad and his murderous cronies the initial people's uprising would probably have succeeded four years ago.

Then No Syrian-based IS, no refugee crisis and so much less upheaval.

Thanks, Vladimir.

Big chest and massive boobs

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