I can't stop crying at the picture of the 2 year old El Salvadoran girl and her Father. [Edited by MNHQ at OP's request]

[woodtv]

I won't link to it as people can find it if they wish to. I wish I hadn't.

The 23 month old and her Father were trying to cross the Rio Grande in to the United States and drowned. Her arms were around his neck.

I saw it a few hours ago and just can't get it out of my head and help bursting in to tears.

I'm so ashamed of this country's government. The situation down there (and elsewhere of course) is heartbreaking. I'd like to go and volunteer as friends have but can't leave ds.

My friends who've been down there say it's actually played down on the news. Trump and his government should be tried for war crimes.

The daddy was the captain of a ship transporting illegal migrants.
I know another couple who survived did allege that, but it's been strongly denied. I don't think it's known either way.

I have a small child and I can’t get that image out of my head. It broke my heart. A little child she was. Those little feet and little hands. Absolutely heartbreaking

Do you mean to be so rude and unpleasant?

Kind of expected this emotional response to be honest, if you cried over this aspect where were you when Obama implemented these so called "interment camps", where were you when Obama was campaigning on a platform of deporting illegal immigration.

Threads like this is empty virtue signalling, its used as a virtual pat on the back to show how apparently compasionate someone is whilst also using black and white thinking and pretending its just because the wrong person/political party is in power.

Its using the fallacy of low expectations as a political statement and its crass and ignorant.

@NameChange9854

NO Proof to me means cover up of reality.

Shocking image just the same, but as you say who knows? But it has not been denied. That's enough for me.

@outsomnia
It has been denied. The father said he paid 4,000 euros to be on the boat and that it was captained by a Turkish man. I don't think anyone who wasn't on the boat can say for sure but you seem to be choosing the narrative you prefer as fact.

Given that you're also baselessly speculating that the photo discussed in the OP may be staged, I think you're just interpreting these stories as best suits your worldview.

Threads like this is empty virtue signalling, its used as a virtual pat on the back to show how apparently compasionate someone is whilst also using black and white thinking and pretending its just because the wrong person/political party is in power.

No. I'm in no way virtue signalling. I've spent most of the day bursting in to tears. It's purely sadness for a dead child actually.

But you carry on scoring points if you feel you have a need to.

Detention centres were bad under Obama and deserved criticism. They are also undoubtedly worse under Trump. I think that part of the reason for the increased coverage under Trump is the child-separation policy, which understandably shone a light on the wider problem.

The daddy was the captain of a ship transporting illegal migrants
I don't believe that. He was an easy scapegoat he can't deny this accusation.
Yanbu I am heart broken too, the last picture of the child washed up alone was as bad, I can't blame them trying to escape.
I wish I could actively help other than donations.
The photo taken before they travelled of the DF and daughter with the flower in her hair smiling.

@JustAnotherlurker

Don't always agree with your posts (I am more a read than post but do sometimes respond to threads, as I am now) but I 100% agree with what you say here.

Well whatever our views are, the death of that little boy in Turkey did not change anything did it?

Nor will it change anything anywhere else either, including the deaths of father and daughter recently.

It has now been recognised that nefarious forces are behind all the Med migrant boats. As if we didn't know this.

Those who try to make it can afford it and are paying their money to criminals and the like.

Total scam.

I would condemn the way internment camps are being run and certainly the inhuman family separation policy but I still think the people of a country are entitled to control immigration. And when immigration controls are in place and not everyone who wants to enter can do so legitimately, tragedies like this are inevitable.

It’s very sad, I didn’t cry though.

Oh my goodness. That is heartbreaking! This world is so unfair.
I hope they can both rest peacefully now.

There are kids and others dying all over the world in famine, mudslides, tsunamis, war, and so on.

I question why these two deaths, while tragic, are so up front in comparison to the mega loss of life elsewhere on the planet. With due respect to both of them.

Well whatever our views are, the death of that little boy in Turkey did not change anything did it
Yes, it did. The family had been trying to reach Canada (where they had other family) and it had a significant impact of the Canadian elections (which were won by Trudeau's Liberal's, in part on a platform to bring in 25,000 Syrian refugees). Trudeau won and kept (actually, surpassed) that particular promise.

Whilst it's sad I find myself confused by these sorts of reactions as expressed in these threads

Don't get me wrong its terrible that a child died. The conditions at the border are also terrible. Certainly if I was fleeing a country I'd want to be treated humanely.

But what I don't get is this concern about migrant children over that of children already here. Children in care homes, children in overcrowded sub-standard housing here in the UK and as for America the poor housing can be atrocious. Children living with the threat of having to move schools again because rents are so unffordable. People using food banks. Parents who cannot afford to give their children breakfast.

How does extra immigration help these things? What do you propose the government do? Let everyone in who has a bad story. What about the indigeinous poor? Why so much sympathy for people trying yo enter illegally.

The poor here are suffering.

I felt pretty disgusted at the reaction to the little boy who died. There had been ships of African migrants including children that had capsized in the sea, for months, but they were black and therefore less aesthetically pleasing in terms of a sob story. Then the photo of the child on the beach came and suddenly all these people were coming forward offering their spare rooms, their extra unoccupied flats and houses, offering to take in migrant families, and I just thought why have none of these people thought about the people struggling here, offering their extra room to a homeless person? A family struggling?

I'm afraid I agree that some of it is virtue signalling.

Absolutely gut wrenchingly heartbreaking
I’ve got no other words 😢😢😢

Well the London baby who was in his mother’s womb when she was murdered has survived his mother by a few days but passed away tonight. No emotive photos though and a left wing mayor so not a candidate for frantic virtue signalling even though it’s on our own doorstep.

The death of dad and daughter is very sad, you would want to have a heart of stone not to be touched by that.

But I think there is an agenda here. What about all those people... kids and parents and so on suffering elsewhere in the world. They never get any publicity at all, well only on a high level and then it's over.

Many do not even recognise what country they are in.

Double standards apply. Save your tears for the entire world.

@CatherineOfAragonsPrayerBook you're suggesting I'm racist? That's a nasty leap to make.

If some of you see people crying over a picture of a dead child (sorry they were brown and not black, for the record I cry just as hard at pictures of children suffering hardship in Africa ) as virtue signalling then you really need to look at yourselves.

And as for "But what I don't get is this concern about migrant children over that of children already here. Children in care homes, children in overcrowded sub-standard housing here in the UK and as for America the poor housing can be atrocious." we're in the process of trying to adopt. But hey, I'd better stipulate they mustn't be white.

Some of you clearly have some very nasty agendas. It's pretty disappointing.

FannyWork,

OK when it happens abroad, but on our own doorstep is too close for comfort.

Omg @FannyWork I hadn't heard that. How utterly fucking terrible.

The poor here are suffering
I don't think you can compare. Some people not all who are poor in the UK and Ireland are feckless with money, be it a McDonald's, alcohol, cigarettes, the majority of poor receive an amount to cover the basics.
I watched a programme with Reggie Yates in Uganda the slums, I've been out of work, poor, fed my children first, never bought new clothes but never ever could I compare it to the suffering in these countries.

But really, please, I know I mentioned the US government in my op. But can hardship and suffering please not become tools for political debates? Can't we just be sad for humanities failings with trying to politicly point score?