Most of the great human tragedies of our time are encapsulated in our memories through a series of iconic photographs. These images—the Vietnamese ‘Napalm girl’, for instance, or the skull-mountain of Cambodia’s ‘killing fields’ or an aircraft tearing into the wtc—had all, in their own way, transcended national boundaries, reaching people worldwide to create a dominant perception about the complex tragedies they represent.

It took the shocking picture of the drowned three-year-old Syrian boy, Ayan Kurdi, photographed face down on a beach in Turkey, to break the collective heart of the world. Europe, in particular, found itself face to face with an ethical crisis. It forced the European Union to respond to an issue that has been knocking at its doors for months—the presence of thousands of people from Syria, Africa, western Balkans and Afghanistan who have been arriving at its shores, people fleeing horrific strife and poverty.

The fact that the unfolding refugee crisis presented a complex issue for Europe was clear over the past months. In August, Austrian authorities had found the decomposed bodies of 71 migrants in an abandoned Hungarian truck near Vienna. There were also reports that over 2,500 people have drowned this year in the Mediterranean while attempting to cross over into Europe from North Africa. Many who had clawed their way into France and found camping near Calais, waiting cross over to England, died while trying to jump into freight trains running the Channel tunnel.

There were several reasons, primarily those stemming from rising xenophobia towards Muslim immigrants in different EU nations, as in Hungary and Slovakia, that made a wary political leadership go slow on the issue.

“Throughout Europe, xenophobia and open racism are running rampant, and nationalists, even far-right parties are gaining ground,” lamented former German foreign minister Joschka Fischer recently. Yet, the death of three-year-old Ayan Kurdi seemed to have shamed the deeply divided EU leadership into action.

Hope in Blue Migrants walk on the Elizabeth bridge over the Danube, in Budapest, en route to Austria

European unity, it would seem, is skating on thin ice. First, it was the financial crisis that saw Greece rescued by a last-minute EU bailout after months of rancorous talks. Now, it is the refugee crisis that’s swamping the continent.

War-torn West Asia and Africa are seeing an exodus of millions. Many are pouring into southern Europe en route to the West; rifts have clouded the continent that has historically been ambivalent about hosting the persecuted.

According to the United Nations High Commission for Refugees, Amnesty International and others, an estimated 4.5-5 million Syrians are now either living in refugee camps or are displaced. Over four million have found refuge in five countries: Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan, Egypt and Iraq. Syrian refugees comprise nearly a quarter of Lebanon’s population, while Turkey and Jordan have taken in around 1.6-1.7 million hapless Syrians.

Europe’s proximity makes it a likely destination; and its perceived affluence makes it a sought after one; for human smugglers in Syrian refugee camps, it’s  turned into lucrative business.

Says UN special representative Peter Sutherland, “For those further away, it seems they feel...any response must come down to those closest to the crisis—even when the crisis may have been in part caused by those same faraway countries.”. Sutherland feels it should be seen as a “global problem”. He argues that “the responsibility lies no more with those closest to Syria, than it does with India or China or the US.”