Bob CollinsA woman who knows something about the worldwide impact of the picture of a child in war is worried that this picture is going to prolong the agony.
Tima Kurdi, of Coquitlam, B.C., tells the Canadian Press that she’s worried the image of the boy in Aleppo will harden people to prolong the war in Syria when the goal needs to be coming up with a peaceful solution to end the conflict.
“This image is the wrong message. The message should be: in the West we should talk to end the war in Syria,” Kurdi said in an interview Thursday.
She’s the aunt of this boy. Alan Kurdi.
Kurdi said she believes the image of her two-year-old nephew is different than the photograph of the boy in Aleppo, who was identified by a local doctor as five-year-old Omran Daqneesh.
“He was the wake-up call to the four or five years of silence,” Kurdi said about Alan’s death raising the profile of the war in Syria, her voice breaking.
“He was the message to wake up the people around the world. And he did, for a few months. And then everybody went back to business.”
Kurdi said she doesn’t support one side or the other in the Syrian conflict, but she’s frustrated by what she calls the Western media’s one-sided coverage of the war. The slanted reporting downplays the impact on civilians of American attacks and bolsters the Syrian rebels at the expense of peace, she said.
“In the West we are supporting regime change. It’s a ridiculous policy,” said Kurdi. “We did support regime change in Iraq. Look what happened.”
