Too often the shocking experiences of refugees are depicted on the nightly news, and despite the gruesomeness of it, we return to our lives seemingly unaffected – but for The Project’s Carrie Bickmore the horror became unbearable.
This week, a harrowing image of a Syrian toddler’s body washing up on the shores of Turkey after the boat he and his family were on sunk on their way to Greece to seek asylum has shocked the world.
In a segment on The Project on Thursday evening, Carrie and the other panellists began discussing the distressing image of the young boy which proved to be overwhelming.
As the picture flashed up onscreen of the lifeless toddler it became all too much for the mum-of-two, whose eyes began to water and voice started to crack.
“I just can’t look at that without being so upset. It just makes me think about how lucky, lucky I am that I live in Australia, that my children live in Australia. That’s what it is,” the Gold Logie winner explained through her tears.
Her co-host Waleed Aly added: “That’s the thing about it, it’s so easy to hear headlines from Syria and move on. I think that’s so easy.”
Tragically, the little boy’s mother and brother also died after their boat sank as it attempted to get to the Greek island of Kos. His father was the only survivor in the family and told CNN: “”I don’t want anything else from this world. Everything I was dreaming of is gone. I want to bury my children and sit beside them until I die.”
See the emotional video in the video player above, a warning though it does contain some distressing content.
