Katie Hopkins tweets disparaging remark about Alan Kurdi's father on anniversary of toddler's death

The three-year-old's lifeless body was shared around the world as a symbol of the plight of Syria's refugees

Katie Hopkins (Ian Gavan/Getty Images)

Being reported to Twitter over an “insensitive” tweet by police doesn't seem to have made a lasting impression on Katie Hopkins.

On Friday, a year to the day since three-year-old Alan Kurdi’s lifeless body was discovered washed up on a Turkish beach, she chose to tweet a picture of his father alongside a disparaging comment.

“Lectured on caring for migrants by a man who left his wife and child at the bottom of the Med? No thank you Mr Kurdi,” she wrote.

Hopkins' tweet comes after Alan's father Abdullah, who now lives in Irbil in Iraqi Kurdistan, spoke to the media on the anniversary of his son's death. The image of the young refugee made headlines across the world and became an iconic image of the refugee crisis in which thousands of people have died. He had been travelling from war-torn Syria to Europe by boat when it sank. His mother Rehana and five-year-old brother Ghalib also perished in the journey. Mr Kurdi survived the journey.

Mr Kurdi has now condemned politicians for failing to act on the refugee crisis and the conflict in Syria in the wake of Alan’s death.

“At first the world was anxious to help the refugees. But this did not even last a month. In fact the situation got worse," he told the BBC. "The war has escalated and more people are leaving. I hope that the poor people can go back to normal life."

Hopkins’ tweet is, of course, not the first to provoke controversy.

Last week, a controversial Twitter poll inviting her followers to guess whether the men who died in the sea at Camber Sands beach were “aspiring footballers, mentally ill, fans of Anders Breivik or big fans of inflatables” was condemned by Sussex police. The force reported the tweet to Twitter under the categories of “abusive or harmful” and “disrespectful or offensive” and branded it insensitive towards the victim’s families. The tweet was soon removed.