German NGO names rescue boat after drowned Syrian boy

Reuters - A 3-year-old Kurdish Syrian boy who died in 2015 while trying to reach Europe with his family had a rescue boat named after him on Sunday (February 10). Syrian toddler Alan Kurdi drowned in the Mediterranean off Turkey in September 2015, along with his five-year-old brother, as his family tried to reach Greece. Their family had fled from their home in the northern Syrian town of Kobani. The photo of Alan Kurdi appeared in media across the world and galvanised several governments into policy changes, with the German government agreeing to admit hundreds of thousands of refugees then stranded in Hungary only two days later. German rescue NGO Sea-Eye distributed a video showing a sombre christening ceremony at the Spanish port of Palma de Mallorca, with Alan's father Abdullah Kurdi attending. The newly named "Alan Kurdi" will continue to try to save migrants from drowning in the Mediterranean, according to the organisation. At the end of January, 47 migrants who had been blocked at sea off Sicily for 11 days on another rescue ship run by a German humanitarian group Sea-Watch were allowed to come ashore.