Turkish court jails two Syrians over Aylan Kurdi death

Two Syrian nationals were sentenced to four years in prison by a Turkish court over the death of Aylan Kurdi, a refugee toddler who drowned off Turkey's coast last year.

MENA

1 min read

The New Arab

04 March, 2016

The image of Aylan Kurdi's lifeless body became a symbol of refugees' suffering [Getty]

Two Syrian people smugglers were sentenced to jail over the death of Aylan Kurdi, the three-year-old boy whose lifeless body was washed up on a beach in Bodrum.

Muwafaka Alabash and Asem Alfrhad were found guilty of trafficking migrants by a Turkish court in Bodrum on Friday.

They were sentenced to four years and two months imprisonment but were cleared of "deliberate negligence" charges.

If they were convicted of causing deaths through negligence, Alabash and Alfrhad would have faced up to 35 years in prison.

The iconic image of Aylan graphically illustrated the magnitude of the suffering and the treacherous journeys refugees risk to reach safety in Europe.

Wearing a bright red t-shirt, the three-year old refugee's body was shown faced down in the sand on a Turkish beach and triggered world wide anguish when it was first published in September.

Aylan drowned when his family choose to make the risky journey from Turkey to Greece in an overload open boat.

Aylan's four-year-old brother and mother also drowned on the fatal journey from Bodrum to the Greek island of Kos.