The little boy on the beach had a name, and it was Aylan.
Searing images of the Syrian toddler’s drowned body, washed ashore after the raft carrying his refugee family capsized off the Turkish coast, pricked consciences worldwide and galvanized passionate debate over the international response to the enormous tide of migrants arriving on the continent’s shores.
On Thursday, a day after photographs of the then-anonymous child lying dead in the surf went viral online – his small pale face slightly turned to one side, his rump-up posture achingly familiar to the parents of any napping toddler -- a fuller portrait emerged of a family rendered desperate by fighting in their hometown, Kobani, and their slender hope of finding refuge in Canada.