The images have prompted an outpouring of sympathy and horror around the world, and on Thursday night, The Project's Carrie Bickmore encapsulated the global feeling when she broke down in tears discussing the photos.
The images of a drowned Syrian toddler, one of 12 refugees whose lifeless bodies washed ashore on a Turkish beach, have dominated social media since Tuesday night.
As the images flashed across television screens during a segment of the Channel Ten show, Bickmore became overwhelmed with emotion.
"I just can't look at that without being so upset. It just makes me think about how lucky, lucky I am that I live in Australia, that my children live in Australia. That's what it is," she said, choking back tears.
Bickmore has a six-month-old daughter and seven-year-old son.
"That's the thing about it," co-host Waleed Aly said. "It's so easy to hear headlines from Syria and move on. I think that's so easy."
Fellow panellist Chrissie Swan said the photo was a powerful reminder that words like "turn back the boats", "refugee" and "asylum seeker", which often create a sense of distance from the crisis, refer to real people.
"It's very easy when you're using words like refugee and asylum seeker and 'othering' words," she said.
"When you see that little boy in his little shoes, that is an asylum seeker. That little boy is a refugee."
The photos of three-year-old Aylan Kurdi, taken by Dogan news agency, have spread across the world on social media under the hashtag #KiyiyaVuranInsanlik, Turkish for "humanity washed ashore".
His mother Rehan and five-year-old brother Galip also died trying to reach the Greek island of Kos.
Their boys' father Abdullah survived, describing to reporters how he desperately tried to hold onto his wife and two children when their overcrowded boat capsized. But as the hours passed, the waves tore them away, one by one.
"I don't want anything else from this world," he told CNN. "Everything I was dreaming of is gone. I want to bury my children and sit beside them until I die."
It has since been revealed that the boys have an aunt in Canada who had sought to sponsor the family but Canadian authorities rejected her request in June.
