On 2 September 2015, pictures that shocked the world showed the lifeless body of three year-old Alan Kurdi on a Turkish beach. He was a Syrian refugee who died after the boat in which his family had attempted to cross to the Greek island of Kos capsized. Since January, hundreds of thousands of refugees, asylum-seekers and migrants had made the same journey, arriving in Greece, while 627 are known to have died along the way.1 In mid- to late-2015, political pressure from the EU on Turkey to halt the irregular crossings grew and negotiations developed towards an agreement to combat irregular migration across their land and sea borders.
