Refugee Crisis: Sitting on the fence is not good enough

One family’s desperate attempt to forge a new life for themselves in fleeing the Syrian civil war has focused world attention on the refugees’ plight by means of one extraordinarily powerful image, writes Caroline O’Doherty.

IF IT is possible to wring your hands while simultaneously sitting on them, then that is what characterised the response to the refugee crisis in the Mediterranean up to last Wednesday.

There were lots of words but little action; intentions but not implementation; sympathy dished out from a distance without the accompanying tea.