Three-year-old Aylan, whose body washed up on a beach in southwest Turkey, drowned along with his mother and brother among a group of migrants trying to make it to Greece and sparked global reaction as images circulated the web in September. A Turkish court has now sentenced two Syrians to four years in jail for smuggling. Original charges brought against the two Syrians included conscious neglect that led to the drowning of five people including Aylan. They have since been acquitted of those charges. Since Aylan’s death, the EU has been faced with the serious crisis of how to deal with the growing numbers of refugees from Syria and other countries. Analysts estimate more than 3,770 migrants died trying to cross the Mediterranean in 2015 alone.
