The Syrian refugee crisis continues with a startling video that has surfaced. The video takes place on Friday, November 20, and in it a Greek coast guard ship can be seen trying to sink an inflatable raft carrying Syrian refugees. The refugees are drifting across the Aegean Sea, looking for rescue, when a man appears at the edge of the coast guard ship, reaching down to the raft with a sharp-ended pole, which he begins to stab at the raft. Many have taken the opinion that the pole was meant to be used to hook the raft in order to bring it closer, and then to settle the raft against the side of the ship so that the refugees could get off the raft without it shifting too much. However, when watching the video, a burst of water can be seen when the raft is popped. Later, when the video switches frame, the refugees can be seen waiting helplessly in a sinking ship and being saved by the Turkish coast guard while the Greek coast guard is nowhere to be seen.

The video was released by the Turkish Institute of Public Diplomacy, who said there were 58 Syrian refugees on the raft, including children. According to the Huffington Post, about 650,000 refugees and migrants have reached the European Union through Greece this year alone, many of whom did so by floating on rafts at sea. Thousands of these Syrians have died in the process.

Syrians are fleeing because of the rising conflicts of the Syrian Civil war. According to the World Vision Organization, 240,000 people have been killed during the war, 12,000 of whom have been children. The war is only getting more and more deadly as time continues. Meanwhile, Syrian education and healthcare has been virtually destroyed. There are 4.8 million people in areas of Syria that are difficult to get to because of the increasing conflict, which makes it hard for aid to reach them. Also, the children, the same kind of children whose parents tried to help escape by sea, have been forcibly recruited to serve as fighters in the war and live amongst visions of brutality that no child should ever be forced to see.

Many say they want to refuse the Syrian refugees in the United States, using the argument of there being a higher possibility of terrorist attacks from within our own country. However, how can one look at a mother clutching her child, trying to keep him warm as their raft is sinking helplessly and still say that they do not deserve our help? There should be a reasonable cap on how many refugees are allowed in, for economic and population reasons, but not for the sake of generalizing and assuming that admittance of Syrians will mean terrorism.