Alan Kurdi photo demands the world to care about refugees

Image | Drowned Syrian migrant boy Bodrum Turkey Sept 2 2015

Caption: A paramilitary police officer carries the lifeless body of a migrant child after a number of boats capsized, near the Turkish resort of Bodrum early Wednesday, Sept. 2, 2015. (DHA/Associated Press)

Audio | The Current : Alan Kurdi photo demands the world to care about refugees

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WARNING: This post contains disturbing images
The refugee crisis is a story that's taken on a new urgency this week thanks in large part to a photograph, an image, that's having ripple effects of its own... the images of the three-year-old Syrian boy Alan Kurdi lying face down, washed up on the shore in Turkey.

Image | ADDITION Turkey Migrants

Caption: A paramilitary police officer investigates the scene before carrying away the lifeless body of Alan Kurdi, 3, near the Turkish resort of Bodrum early Wednesday, Sept. 2, 2015 (AP/DHA)

He and his family -- father, mother and five-year-old brother -- had fled Syria in a dinghy. Only the father survived. Alan Kurdi's aunt, Fatima Kurdi, who goes by Tima, lives in Coquitlam, British Columbia.

Media Video | (not specified) : Family of drowned Syrian boys speaks

Caption: Tima Kurdi, aunt of Alan and Galib Kurdi, speaks of her loss

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...when the boat flipped upside down, and the wave keep pushing him down, those two boys they were in his arms... and screamed 'daddy please don't die' - Fatima Kurdi, Alan Kurdi's aunt
The photo of Alan Kurdi -- as simple as it is devastating -- has sparked anger, sadness and outrage unmatched by any of them.
To discuss the ripple effects of this photo, we convened two people who have thought a lot about it.
This segment was produced by The Current's Sujata Berry, Sonya Buyting and Gord Westmacott.

There has been no shortage of devastating photographs coming out of the civil war in Syria and the refugee crisis that has followed.

Here are 6 iconic photos that captured the world's attention.

Vietnam napalm attack

Image | Vietnam Photographer's Return VIETNAM ARCHIVAL 220

Caption: In this June 8, 1972, file photo, South Vietnamese forces follow behind terrified children, including nine-year-old Kim Phuc, centre, as they run down Route 1 near Trang Bang after an aerial napalm attack on suspected Viet Cong hiding places. (Nick Ut/AP)


Abu Ghraib​

Image | Mideast The Debate in Islam

Caption: One in a series of shocking images, this photo shows an unidentified detainee standing on a box with a bag on his head and wires attached to him in the Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad, Iraq. (AP)


Oka crisis

Image | Oka Crisis Anniversary 20150707

Caption: Canadian soldier Patrick Cloutier and Saskatchewan Native Brad Laroque alias Freddy Kruger, come face to face in a tense standoff at the Kahnesatake reserve in Oka, Que., Saturday Sept. 1, 1990. (Shaney Komulainen/Canadian Press)


Tiananmen Square

Image | China Tiananmen Then and Now

Caption: In this June 5, 1989 file photo, a Chinese man stands alone to block a line of tanks heading east on Beijing's Changan Blvd. from Tiananmen Square (Jeff Widener/Associated Press) (Jeff Widener/AP)


Woolworth's sit-in

Image | Obit Moody

Caption: This May 28, 1963, file photograph shows a sit-in demonstration at a Woolworth's lunch counter in Jackson, Miss., where whites poured sugar, ketchup and mustard over heads of the demonstrators. Seated at the counter, from left, are John Salter, Joan Trumpauer and Anne Moody. (Fred Blackwell/Jackson Daily News/AP)


Viet Cong execution

Image | Vietnam War Photo Homecoming VIETNAM ARCHIVAL 220

Caption: In this Feb. 1, 1968, file photo, South Vietnamese Gen. Nguyen Ngoc Loan, chief of the National Police, fires his pistol into the head of suspected Viet Cong officer Nguyen Van Lem on a Saigon street, early in the Tet Offensive. (Eddie Adams/AP)