The Independent’s campaign to welcome Ukrainian refugees is a proud moment – but a sobering one

Refugees Welcome: It can feel frustrating at times like this, not knowing how we can help or make a positive difference, and wanting to avoid centring ourselves in the narrative of war, writes Victoria Richards

Seven years ago, on the news desk at The Independent, we devised a campaign to try to help those displaced by war (Getty)

In 2015, my colleagues at The Independent and I were in the newsroom, fielding calls from correspondents, charities and eyewitnesses, each reporting on one terrible and terrifying thing – the number of refugees fleeing Syria.

It felt, then, as though public sentiment had finally come together – that our empathy had widened, collected around the shocking photograph of the body of little Alan Kurdi, washed up dead on a Turkish beach, which was splashed across so many newspaper front pages. He was three years old. My daughter was also three years old when Alan died. The stark horror of that image has never left me.

Alan’s brother, Galip, aged five, and their mother, Rihan, also died when their small dinghy capsized on route to the Greek island of Kos after they had fled the Syrian city of Kobani. The family had dreamed of joining Alan’s aunt Teema in Canada. Their story, despite its raw and searing tragedy, was far from unique – and neither was it the last of its kind. Since then, we’ve carried scores of reports of people lost at sea in the Channel after attempting to reach sanctuary in Europe by way of overcrowded, unsuitable boats.