Turkish prosecutors demand jail term for smugglers over Aylan Kurdi's death


Two Syrian men accused of causing the death of Aylan Kurdi, a two-year-old Syrian boy whose body washed ashore in Turkey in September and remains a haunting image of the migrants' plight, face 35 years in prison.Prosecutors wrapped up an indictment on two unidentified Syrians charged with causing multiple deaths due to gross negligence and migrant smuggling for the incident where five people, including Aylan, his brother Galib and mother Zahin Kurdi, drowned.The indictment now awaits the approval of the court in Bodrum, a Turkish town where the victims departed for the nearby Greek islands.A manhunt is still underway for six other suspects, including four Turkish nationals.Aylan Kurdi was aboard the boat with 13 others including his father Abdullah, who survived the sinking of the boat on Sept. 2.Images of Kurdi's lifeless body lying on the beach became a symbol of the refugees' plight and increased the public pressure on European countries to do more for refugees. The European Union is still debating on how many refugees each country should take in, while Eastern European countries continue their heavy-handed response to migrants amassed on their borders.Turkey, the host of more than 2 million Syrian refugees displaced by years of brutal conflict, is struggling to cope with the surge in the number of refugees risking their lives to cross into Europe this year.According to figures from the Coast Guard, more than 83,000 migrants were intercepted in Turkish waters this year. On Dec. 8, six Afghan children drowned when their boat sank off Turkey's Aegean coast. Figures by the International Organization for Migration shows at least 627 people died this year in the Aegean Sea while trying to cross into Greece, the gateway to Europe for migrants from Syria and Asian countries.Smugglers often avoid being captured by security forces, as they abandon migrants on the secluded spots on the shores without detection, but Turkey stepped up efforts to clamp down on the smuggling gang recently. This year, 165