THE police officer who discovered the lifeless body of Aylan Kurdi washed up on a Turkish shore has told how he believed the boy could still have been alive as he carried up him the beach, but was crushed deep down when he realised he was dead.
Mehmet Ciplak was pictured carrying the three-year-old from the beach in Bodrum in a photo which triggered an international outcry over the refugee crisis.
Aylan his five year-old brother Galip and his mother Rehan all drowned after their boat capsized in the Aegean Sea as they tried to make the perilous crossing to Kos. Only his father Abdullah survived.
The young Kurdish-Syrian family had fled their home town of Kobane after fighters with Islamic State (IS), also known as ISIS, laid siege to their city.
They were trying to join members of their family in Canada.
Photos of Aylan's lifeless red t-shirted body lying on the shore and then being carried by Mr Ciplak have been seen as a turning point in the way the world views the growing refugee crisis.
Many people, including Bob Geldof, have offered to house refugees in their own homes[1].