Rescue ship named for drowned Syrian child refugee

A rescue ship operating in the Mediterranean has been renamed Alan Kurdi, after the Syrian toddler who died trying to reach Europe in 2015.

The image of the three-year-old’s body washed up on a Turkish beach sparked global outrage and came to epitomise the plight of those fleeing war.

But that was three years ago and European hearts – and ports – have since closed to both refugees and rescue ships.

Al Jazeera’s David Chater reports from the ship’s naming ceremony on the Spanish island of Mallorca.