The 5 Awkward Questions They Won’t Answer About the Drowned Boy, Syria and our ‘Moral Duty’

1. What’s the truth behind the story of the drowned boy Aylan Kurdi?

There’s just so much that doesn’t add up. Starting with the fact that the boy’s name is actually Alan Shenu. His father Abdullah claims he and his family were fleeing the fighting in his ‘home town’ Kobani.

Yet according to the Guardian they have been living in Turkey for three years – long before the fighting in Kobani started or indeed ISIS really existed – and before that in Damascus.

In Turkey, their rent appears to have been paid for by a sister in Canada and they had over $4,400 in cash so they were in no immediate danger. Abdullah’s accounts of his motives, of his intentions and what actually happened are wildly inconsistent. In some versions he was heading for Sweden. The Little Green Book ... James Delingpole Best Price: $5.70 Buy New $19.99 (as of 06:30 UTC - Details)

In others he was off to Canada (which had already once denied his asylum application), where his sister said he intended to have his teeth fixed. As for what he tells us about the tragic boat journey in which his wife and children drowned: was he even with them when it happened?

For example, he told the Mail that he watched his wife and children drown in front of him. But then later in his account, he says: “I looked for my wife and child on the beach but couldn’t find them. I thought they had got scared and had run away and I went back to Bodrum.”

2. Who invented the story about the torture and the teeth?

Tima Kurdi’s unhelpful revelation that her brother had risked his family’s life to “get his damaged teeth fixed” did not sit well with the media narrative that the Kurdis were tragic victims of the Syrian conflict.

When people began pointing this out on social media, it threatened to undermine the power “photo that changed the world” story. But then, astonishingly quickly, a handy explanation emerged: the people pouring scorn on Kurdi’s story were “right wing extremists”; the reason Kurdi had lost his teeth was that he had been tortured by the Assad regime and had them all removed.

The meme – for that’s what it quickly became as people began reposting it on social media – appears to have originated with this Syrian blogger Kenan Rahmani.

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