Online and in the real world, few people have been able to get the image of 3-year-old Aylan Kurdi out of their minds since it surfaced on social media last week.
It has spurred European governments to serious conversation about the thousands of war-torn refugees fighting to reach their shores. Meanwhile, Arabs have pointed bitterly at Gulf countries, where effective asylum policies have also been elusive. By Monday, even Secretary General Ban Ki-moon admitted the UN security council was failing in Syria.
This is hardly the first time asylum seekers have drowned at sea — Aylan himself was just one of 12 who lost their lives when his raft sank on Thursday. Looking more asleep than dead, the lifeless body has us stuck on the details — the little boy’s tiny black sneakers and red t-shirt; the Turkish police officer’s blank face as he carries the body away.
For a lot of people, the scene has encapsulated everything that’s wrong with how we’ve dealt with Syria, filed away as another symbolic capture that changed the tide.
We can recall the world’s most famous — the naked child running down the streets of Vietnam after a napalm attack; Robert Capa’s blurry D-Day soldier, swimming for cover on Omaha beach in WWII.
But the Arab world has its own set of immortals. Some you may recognize making headlines across the globe, while others have just bounced around the region, surfacing every now and then as reminders of what so many years of conflict have looked like.
Here’s our selection of photos that swayed the Arab world.
Warning: Some content is graphic and may be disturbing to viewers.
