A Turkish police officer carries the lifeless body of three-year-old refugee Aylan Kurdi. Photo / AP
A Turkish police officer carries the lifeless body of three-year-old refugee Aylan Kurdi. Photo / AP
This heartbreaking photo of the tiny body of a refugee boy who died alongside his brother and mother on the perilous journey across the Mediterranean today shocked the world.
The publication of the photo comes as Labour leader Andrew Little called on Prime Minister John Key to show "moral leadership" and increase New Zealand's refugee quota.
"The Prime Minister said it was an act of leadership when he committed $65 million to have 16 military trainers in Iraq, but he has no money for extra help for refugees," Mr Little said.
"The flag issue should have been about who we are as a nation. This issue is just that.
How Kiwis react to desperate people fleeing terror on the other side of the world is about who we are as a people. It's about who John Key is as a leader."
National is the only party in Parliament that does not support an increase in the annual quota of around 750.
Mr Key has said a review will be carried out next year, but believes it is important to concentrate on adequately supporting the refugees we currently accept.
Scenes coming out of Europe and the Middle East have put pressure on all countries to address what is an escalating refugee crisis.
Little Galip, five, and Aylan Kurdi, three, were on an overcrowded dinghy filled with refugees fleeing the war in Syria when it capsized shortly into the crossing to the Greek island of Kos.
Pictures of Aylan's limp body in the sand and of it being carried by a local gendarme has come to epitomise the crisis engulfing Europe as a tide of humanity flees the horrors in the Middle East.
Another mother was pictured grief-stricken after losing two of her children, aged nine and 11.
Aylan and Galip, who were not wearing lifejackets, did not stand a chance when the boat overturned in the dead of night, some 30 minutes after it set off at around 2am from the holiday resort of Bodrum in Turkey.
All 16 passengers were flung into the Mediterranean, and despite the calm water, Galip and Aylan drowned.
Their lifeless bodies, still clad in tiny T-shirts and shorts, washed up on the beach in Bodrum today and boatmen alerted the authorities.
A heartbreaking photograph of a Turkish gendarme cradling one of the boys in his arms emerged shortly after the tragedy and video footage showed the body of the second.
Of the 16 passengers, 13 - including the Kurdish brothers and their mother - are believed to have died. The death toll includes five children.
Syrian refugees are pictured minutes after arriving on the shores of Lesbos island in Greece. Photo / AFP
Meanwhile, another dinghy carrying six passengers heading for Kos capsized.
Outside Bodrum state hospital, Zeynep Abbas Hadi, another mother who lost two of her three children, was tended to by hospital staff, according to Turkish news site Milliyet.
Her 11-year-old and nine-year-old drowned and she was pictured being consoled by her surviving daughter.
The dead are among the 2,500 people who have already lost their lives this year while fleeing violence, oppression and poverty and trying to reach Europe by sea.
The route between Bodrum and Kos is one of the shortest from Turkey to the Greek islands - about 13 miles. Thousands are attempting the perilous sea crossing despite the risks.
Syrian refugees on the Greek island of Lesvos after crossing the Aegean sea from Turkey in an inflatable boat. Photo / AFP
Senior United Nations official, Philippe Douste-Blazy, who has witnessed the harrowing scenes in the Mediterranean first hand, gave an impassioned warning to Europe's leaders today.
"The talk from politicians is of invasion, mass migration. The mood that has been created is one of xenophobia, of nationalism, of fear," he told The Independent.
"But, you know, these populists should be careful; the people of Europe are more decent and humane than they think, and they will not like being used for political ends."
The UN under-secretary general, who is the organisation's special adviser for development, said people need to see the 'full horror' of what is happening and is sure they will then want to help.
Yvette Cooper, who is standing for the Labour leadership, suggested that it should be possible to take some 10,000 people seeking asylum.
A fishing boat rescues nearly 49 Syrian refugees who were trying to reach Greece. Photo / AFP
Elsewhere in Europe, thousands of desperate migrants staged angry protests outside Budapest's main international railway station after Hungarian authorities refused to let them board trains bound for western Europe.
Around 3,000 migrants are currently waiting at Keleti station in the capital, many camping outside the main entrance guarded by police, who said citizen patrols were assisting them in keeping order.
Outside, young Syrian children were wrapped in blankets and held in the air as if they were dead to remind Hungarian authorities of the bloody war zones hundreds of those now stranded in Budapest had risked their lives to flee in recent weeks.
Loud chants of "freedom, freedom" filled the streets outside the station, as several hundred migrants engaged in tense stand-offs with police.
Hungary's police said in a statement they intend to reinforce their positions outside the terminal as the volume of migrants arriving from Serbia continues to grow by the hour.
They said officers working jointly with colleagues from Austria, Germany and Slovakia also were searching for migrants travelling illegally on other Hungarian trains and described the security push as compatible with the EU's policy of passport-free travel.
In France, there were chaotic scenes and 16-hour delays hit London-bound Eurostar services overnight as migrants climbed on to the roof of an 186mph train and attempted to break into train carriages.
Refugees receive aid from the Red Cross and the UN teams on the Macedonia border. Photo / AFP
Passengers on board one train stranded near Calais are understood to have threatened to smash the windows after a power outage left the sweltering carriage in total darkness for five hours.
And at Greece's northern border with Macedonia, people are camping out waiting to head further north.
Macedonian authorities have been allowing small groups to cross at a time and head to the Gevgelija train station.
Meanwhile, naval vessels from several nations continued to patrol Mediterranean waters off the coast of Libya in hopes of preventing more mass drownings.
And a ship bringing about 1,800 migrants from a nearby Greek island arrived at the port of Piraeus near Athens on Tuesday night, the Greek coastguard said.
Germany, France and the UK have called for a meeting of EU interior and justice ministers in mid-September to work out new responses to the crisis.
While Germany says it expects to receive 800,000 migrants - quadruple last year's figure - many other EU nations face criticism for failing to commit to housing more asylum seekers.
In comparison, Britain received 25,771 asylum applications in the year ending June 2015, according to the Home Office.
Pressure has grown on Prime Minister David Cameron to increase Britain's involvement in sharing the burden of the hundreds of thousands of people arriving on European soil.
Mr Cameron has been warned his hopes of overhauling the European Union will be blocked if Britain refuses to accept more refugees from north Africa.
Austria and Germany - key allies in the Prime Minister's push for change in Brussels - have condemned the UK for not opening the doors to asylum seekers.
They warned Mr Cameron that "solidarity is not a one-way street" and said his hopes of renegotiating EU membership will be scuppered if he behaves like Britain is 'out of the club'.
Mr Cameron has promised to renegotiate Britain's membership of the EU before holding an in-out vote by the end of 2017.
Ms Cooper said yesterday: "If every city took 10 refugee families, if every London borough took 10 families, if every county council took 10 families, if Scotland, Wales and every English region played their part, then in a month we'd have nearly 10,000 more places for vulnerable refugees fleeing danger, seeking safety."
She said the failure to offer sanctuary to refugees trying to escape the 'new totalitarianism' of Islamic State in the Middle East was "immoral" and "cowardly".
And fellow Labour leadership contender Andy Burnham said the British government is treating the refugee crisis as if it is nothing more than a 'tedious inconvenience' for holidaymakers and urged the UK to 'share the burden of caring for genuine asylum seekers'.
- Daily Mail with additional reporting from Nicholas Jones at the New Zealand Herald
