Heartbreaking cartoons inspired by the photograph of three-year-old Syrian Aylan Kurdi found dead and washed up on the Turkish coast have been posted on social media.

Aylan died alongside his five year-old brother Galip and mother Rehan. The family had fled the Syrian city of Kobane, which Islamic State laid siege to, and were on a packed dinghy bound for the Greek island of Kos when they sank.

Only the toddler's father, Abdullah, survived.

In a moving tribute to the story behind the shocking image, illustrators have picked up their pens and drawn sketches.

The outpouring echoes what was seen during the "Je Suis Charlie" drawings created in the wake of the terror attack on Charlie Hebdo's offices in Paris earlier this year.

 

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Here the animals are pictured caring for refugees more than humans.

 

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In one of the cartoons Aylan can be seen lying face down on the shore with angel wings on his back and a red rose in his hand, while others show him holding nine black balloons or lying in a cot with a child's mobile above him.

Khalid Albaih, a Sudanese cartoonist living in Doha, Qatar, created an image showing an angel with the boy in its arms, with the words: "I hope humanity finds a cure for visas."

Another artist drew a cast of cartoon sea animals crying and with their heads bowed as they watch a Turkish police officer scribbling in a notepad by Aylan's body.

Some of the images focused on the political failures behind the crisis, portraying Aylan's body in the middle of a UN vote or a group of Arab sheikhs who have dug the boy's grave in the sand.

 

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Many of the images were posted with the hashtag #KiyiyaVuranInsanlik, which means "Humanity washed ashore" in Turkish.

Martin Xuereb is director of the Migrant Offshore Aid Station, a humanitarian charity which rescues migrants who risk their lives crossing across the sea.

He said the picture of Aylan is a "pivotal" moment in how the world views the refugee crisis.

He said: "I think it has been pivotal for one simple reason - because the tragedy is no longer a statistic now, it is no longer just a child. Now we know that child, now we know that child has a name, now we know where the child was born.

"That child had a future. That child could have been the next Nelson Mandela, could have been the next Marie Curie. That child could have grown up to be a contributor to this world.

"He could have been a simple person who loved life.

"The tragedy now has a face and a name. I can tell you 10,000 stories - some less tragic some more tragic than that photo. But what that photo has done, sad as it is, is humanise the tragedy and bring to the fore the human tragedy of migration."

 

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A hand-drawn image with the child with an angel

 


 

 

 


 

 

 

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