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Syrian father pictured weeping in viral photo reaches Germany with family
Affan Chowdhry

This article was published more than 9 years ago. Some information may no longer be current.

In a photo widely shared on social media and the subject of newspaper columns meant to humanize Syrian refugees trying to reach Europe, Laith Majid can be seen clutching his daughter Nour and holding his son Taha to his chest – and weeping.

It is a moment mixed with relief and anguish, showing the Majid family – father, mother, three sons and a daughter – setting foot on the Greek island of Kos on Aug. 16, after making a perilous journey from Bodrum, Turkey, in a flimsy rubber boat that had lost air.

What happened to the Majid family after that moment was unclear. The photographer reported visiting the family in a tent on the island before they were transferred to a ferry housing refugees and processing their claims. This week, a Facebook group promoting solidarity among Europeans to welcome refugees posted a photo of a smiling Majid family.

“The photo of the weeping father clutching onto his children, as they survived the deadly crossing and arrived on the shores of Greece, touched the hearts of millions around the world. Today he arrived safely in Berlin and is able to build a new future for him and his family,” said post on the Europe Says OXI page.

German tabloid Bild reported that the family had arrived in the capital and was housed in a former police barracks that has been adapted for the use of refugees. Mr. Majid’s wife, Nada Adel, praised German Chancellor Angela Merkel. “She is like a mother for us,” she said.

Standing on the beach on the morning of Aug. 16 was freelance photographer Daniel Etter, who wrote in The Guardian about the moment the Majid family arrived.

“When the boat landed, a middle-aged man got out. He was visibly shaken, and had a hard time walking. When all his family finally reached the safety of the beach, he and his wife broke down in tears, hugging every single one of their children, the rest of their extended family and the single Pakistani man who was with them,” he wrote.

Mr. Etter said no picture he had ever taken received the kind of public response that the Majid family photo did – with many people wondering how to help the family.

“I got a lot of tweets where people say, ‘I’m a parent, it just touched me extremely to see this father holding his children,’ ” he said in BBC World Service radio interview.

After the photo of Mr. Majid holding his children on the Greek beach was published in the New York Times and shared on social media, the family received offers of asylum from 13 countries. They chose Germany.

Germany is expected to take in more than 800,000 refugees and asylum-seekers in 2015. On Tuesday, German Vice-Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel said in a television interview that his country could take in a half a million more people on a yearly basis for several years.

“I have no doubt about it – maybe even more,” he said.

The fate of the Majid family is dramatically different from another Syrian family – Abdullah Kurdi and his wife and children – whose attempt to make the same journey ended tragically when the boat tipped over and drowned three-year-old Alan, five-year-old Ghalib and their mother, Rehanna.

The image of Alan’s body, face-down on a Turkish beach, prompted a public outcry in Canada and Europe over the handling of the refugee crisis, and prompted some governments to revise how many Syrian refugees they were letting in to their countries.

The power of social media to galvanize the public unfolded in the case of another Syrian refugee father, Abdul Halim Attar, who was photographed in August holding his sleeping daughter as he walked the streets of Beirut selling pens.

A campaign to help him has raised nearly $200,000 (U.S.) and the #BuyPens campaign is looking to help the Attar family find a better home than the cramped room where the single father lives with his two children.

Mr. Attar told Al Jazeera news network he could not understand what was happening when he went to work one day and discovered a flood of attention from passersby. “One woman came up to me, saying she broke her feet looking for me for five hours, and told me what was going on ... I’m still in disbelief,” he told the Qatar-based news network.

“I want to use any money I get to help other Syrians. What’s for me is for them,” he added.