Little Aylan: Immigration And Human Trafficking

We all discovered with consternation the picture of the Syrian toddler whose body washed up on a Turkish beach. This is a shame for all of humanity. I don't know from where to start to condemn -- from the countries who have contributed to the conditions that has pushed this little boy and his family to seek refuge in foreign lands, or from those "developed" countries focused on rejecting these people without doing anything to change their destiny?
Many are to be blamed for this tragic event: the US, Russia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and several European countries. Arabs are to blame, Kurds, the Syrian regime, the Syrian opposition, the al-Nusra Front, Hezbollah, the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levent (ISIL) -- in other words, every single player you can think of.
The entirety of the human race is responsible, but nobody does anything meaningful to change the situation. As well as the "high politics" aspect of the matter, there is another group of people who play a crucial role in these human dramas. Governments seem for some reason unable or unwilling to fight against them: human traffickers.
Just like terrorist organizations, human trafficking organizations are multinational. There are criminals from all nationalities within these groups and they benefit from open or tacit support of many governments or, at least, of some government employees. They should be attacked exactly as other international criminal organizations are. As other illegal organizations do, they cross borders illegally, they are responsible for many kinds of illegal traffic and they earn considerable amounts of money illegally. They are not that different from those organizations who kidnap people and ask for a ransom, perhaps the only difference being that the people are not kidnapped, but pay them willingly.
Aylan's family has also probably paid $1,500 per person, and they have hidden somewhere on the Aegean coast during the wait for an available boat. That means they have also paid money to people who have accepted to hide them. Furthermore, some people brought them food, and others purchased life jackets for them. Smuggling people has become a very lucrative business for some, not only for smugglers but also for many other people who do perfectly legal jobs -- for example, those who provide them with what they need, such as life jackets and so on.
When a Syrian decides to leave his country, he first contacts Syrian smugglers who bring him to the Turkish border. On their way, they pay many people to allow them to pass. The identity of the smuggler depends on whether or not the Syrian who wants to leave is Christian or Kurdish or anything else, but the system remains the same. When he crosses the border, he starts paying smugglers on the Turkish side. These smugglers allow the immigrants to avoid police control, to travel to Turkey's western shores, etc. If the candidate for immigration does not have enough money, the smugglers make him work, as a beggar or pickpocket for example, so he can earn enough money to pay his smugglers. Everything is quite organized; they know where to sleep, where to eat, where to go and where not to go.
Most of them genuinely believe that once they reach Europe, everything will be all right. So they are ready to do anything, to pay anything and they don't think much about the details when the smugglers show them the boat they will take to cross the Aegean Sea. Dozens of people are forced to travel in tiny little boats, and conditions are so bad that it is not surprising that some of those boats sink in minutes. The smugglers disappear quickly as soon as they send the boat, and they don't care whether or not it reaches the other side. It is just about money for them. No one is able to tell how many of these boats leave Turkey's shores daily.
Isn't it more reasonable to think about ways to dismantle those human trafficking organizations, rather than building walls at the borders, or proposing to pay money to set up camps in a third country?

BERİL DEDEOĞLU (Cihan/Today's Zaman)