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"What Would I Do If The Baby Was Mine? "

By Ozan KÖSE


Un bébé, victime du naufrage d'un bateau de réfugiés, gît sur une place du village turc de Bademli le 30 janvier 2016 (AFP / Ozan Köse)

A baby, a victim of the shipwreck of a refugee ship between Turkey and the Greek island of Lesbos, lying on a beach in the Turkish village of Bademli January 30, 2016 (AFP / Ozan Köse)


 

1 February 2016 - When I get on the pebbly beach, the first corpse I see is that of a baby. It must have nine or ten months, it is warmly covered and wearing a hat. An orange pacifier hangs his clothes. Beside him lay another child, aged eight or nine years, and an adult, their mother perhaps.

At the time, I do not know what to do. I take some pictures. I walk the beach, I see the body of another child on a rock. Eventually I will have nightmares, I will be unable to speak during hours, but at this moment I do not feel anything in particular. Turkish police are busy collecting other drowned washed up on the beach after the shipwreck of the previous night. There are so many dead bodies ... I can not count them.

For the moment person handles the dead baby. So I come back to him and for maybe one hour, I remain at his side in silence. I have two children, a girl of eight and a boy of five months. I wonder what I would do if this baby was mine. I wonder what is happening to humanity.

I find myself in the last few days Cannakale region, on the Turkish coast of the Aegean Sea, where massed thousands of Syrian, Iraqi and other refugees seeking to win the Greek island of Lesbos, located just opposite. The situation is very tense here.


A baby, a victim of the shipwreck of a boat of refugees between Turkey and Greece, January 30, 2016 (AFP / Ozan Köse)

(AFP / Ozan Köse)


 

The day before, I went into the woods where dozens of migrants retreated after facts scammed by smugglers. They made their paying a fortune to board a boat to Greece, but at the appropriate time the boat has proven much smaller advertised. Fearing flow, migrants have refused to get. They are faced with the smugglers, who threatened them with firearms.


Refugees wait in a wood near the Turkish coast after being swindled by smugglers, January 29, 2016 (AFP / Ozan Köse)

Refugees wait in a wood near the coast after being swindled by Turkish smugglers, January 29, 2016 (AFP / Ozan Köse)


 

In this makeshift camp where they warmed themselves around bonfires while looking for a new boat for Europe, the refugees were happy to see me, to tell me about their problems.Children constantly asking their parents, "then, is when you go up on the boat? "


A refugee changes his baby in a makeshift refugee camp in a wood near the Turkish coast, January 29, 2016 (AFP / Ozan Köse)

(AFP / Ozan Köse)


 

Some of these people I've met in the wood-they took place aboard the crowded tub which, on the night of January 29 to 30, dark calm weather a few hundred meters from the coast? Without a doubt. Perhaps. Impossible to know.


The wreck of a boat shipwrecked refugees near the Turkish coast, January 30, 2016 (AFP / Ozan Köse)

The wreck of the refugee ship which sank near the Turkish coast, January 30, 2016 (AFP / Ozan Köse)


 

This Saturday morning I wake up with a start at seven o'clock and heard many sirens of ambulances. My hotel is located right next to the base of the Coast Guard. Something serious must have happened.


The Turkish coastguard landed the body of a victim refugee shipwreck between Turkey and the Greek island of Lesbos, January 30, 2016 (AFP / Ozan Köse)

The Turkish coastguard landed the body of a victim sinking of refugee (AFP / Ozan Köse)


 

By the time I get to the base, a shuttle just docked. Of bodies wrapped in plastic bags are being unloaded. I count ten. There are also many survivors, including many women and children. I approach. They come from Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, but also Burma and Bangladesh. They are in shock. They tell me that he was fine, the sea was calm, but they were far too many on the boat. It was a small boat designed for walking tourists, and with a capacity of twenty or thirty passengers maximum. When she sank, more than a hundred migrants were piled on board. Each had paid 1,200 euros to smugglers.


Refugee survivors of a shipwreck await the bodies of their relatives in the Turkish village of Kucukkuyu, January 30, 2016 (AFP / Ozan Köse)

Survivors await the bodies of their relatives in the Turkish village of Kucukkuyu, January 30, 2016 (AFP / Ozan Köse)


 

The survivors were taken away by police for questioning, and I decided to get closer to the site of the sinking. The tragedy occurred less than one kilometer from the coast, near the village of Bademli. When I get there, I see the wreck that engulfed half, adrift, is now at about fifty meters from shore. The pebble beach is littered with life jackets, personal belongings and corpses rejected by the icy waves of the Aegean Sea, so that this baby next to which I find myself.


Turkish gendarmes outweigh the body of a victim refugee shipwreck between Turkey and the Greek island of Lesbos, January 30, 2016 (AFP / Ozan Köse)

(AFP / Ozan Köse)


 

During my career as a photojournalist, I covered crises, riots, attacks. I have seen the dead. But this is worse than anything.

Looking at that little body, I wonder why it all. Why this endless war in Syria. I rage against all those politicians who caused this tragedy against smugglers who send so many people to death.

Then a policeman arrives, raises the child and deposit it in a plastic bag. He too is crying.


 

Ozan Köse is an AFP photographer based in Istanbul. Follow him on Twitter(ozannkosee). This article was written with Roland de Courson in Paris.


Turkish gendarmes outweigh the body of a victim refugee shipwreck between Turkey and the Greek island of Lesbos, January 30, 2016 (AFP / Ozan Köse)

(AFP / Ozan Köse)

  L’Agence France-Presse (AFP) est une agence de presse mondiale fournissant une information rapide, vérifiée et complčte en vidéo, texte, photo, multimédia et infographie sur les événements qui font l’actualité internationale. Des guerres et conflits ŕ la politique, au sport, au spectacle jusqu’aux grands développements en matičre de santé, de sciences ou de technologie.

Original article - Translation by Google.

http://blogs.afp.com/makingof/?post%2Fturquie-refugies-naufrage-que-ferais-je-si-ce-bebe-etait-a-moi

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