PARIS: French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo is courting controversy again by running cartoons deriding the response of predominantly Christian European countries to a flood of migrants from mainly Muslim war zones.
The latest edition has attracted renewed attention — and criticism on social media.
One drawing plays on the harrowing photo of Aylan Kurdi, the drowned Syrian child whose body washed up on a beach in Turkey after a failed attempt to cross by boat with his family to Greece. The photograph galvanized world attention on the refugee crisis.
The Charlie Hebdo cartoon shows a toddler in shorts and a T-shirt face down on the shoreline beside an advertising billboard that offers two children’s meal menus for the price of one.
“So close to making it...” the caption says.
Another cartoon, also penned by a cartoonist who survived the militant attack on Charlie Hebdo’s Paris premises in January, runs under a caption saying: “Proof that Europe is Christian.”
It shows a figure walking on the water while another, smaller figure wearing shorts is up-ended in the water, with the former saying “Christians walk on water” and the latter “Muslim children sink.”
Newspapers from Asia to North America noted the cartoons.
“Aylan Kurdi’s death mocked by Charlie Hebdo,” read a headline in the Toronto Sun. “Charlie Hebdo criticized for dead Syrian toddler’s cartoon,” said the Times of India.
Britain’s Daily Mirror published a headline on its website saying: “Charlie Hebdo publishes cartoons mocking dead Aylan Kurdi with caption ‘Muslim children sink’.
Charlie Hebdo mocks drowned Syrian boy
Charlie Hebdo mocks drowned Syrian boy
Ankara city hall says water cuts due to ‘record drought’
- Dam reservoir levels have dropped to 1.12 percent and taps are being shut off for several hours a day in certain districts on a rotating schedule in Ankara
ANKARA: Water cuts for the past several weeks in Turkiye’s capital were due to the worst drought in 50 years and an exploding population, a municipal official told AFP, rejecting accusations of mismanagement.
Dam reservoir levels have dropped to 1.12 percent and taps are being shut off for several hours a day in certain districts on a rotating schedule in Ankara, forcing many residents to line up at public fountains to fill pitchers.
“2025 was a record year in terms of drought. The amount of water feeding the dams fell to historically low levels, to 182 million cubic meters in 2025, compared with 400 to 600 million cubic meters in previous years. This is the driest period in the last 50 years,” said Memduh Akcay, director general of the Ankara municipal water authority.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has called the Ankara municipal authorities, led by the main opposition party, “incompetent.”
Rejecting this criticism, the city hall says Ankara is suffering from the effects of climate change and a growing population, which has doubled since the 1990s to nearly six million inhabitants.
“In addition to reduced precipitation, the irregularity of rainfall patterns, the decline in snowfall, and the rapid conversion of precipitation into runoff (due to urbanization) prevent the dams from refilling effectively,” Akcay said.
A new pumping system drawing water from below the required level in dams will ensure no water cuts this weekend, Ankara’s city hall said, but added that the problem would persist in the absence of sufficient rainfall.
Much of Turkiye experienced a historic drought in 2025. The municipality of Izmir, the country’s third-largest city on the Aegean coast, has imposed daily water cuts since last summer.
