In August, 2015, Austrian police unlocked a refrigerated poultry lorry abandoned on the side of the road. Inside were the mangled, decomposing bodies of 71 refugees -- all from Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan -- who had suffocated to death in the truck soon after being smuggled into neighboring Hungary. Eleven members of the human trafficking ring responsible for transporting the migrants across borders went on trial in June for human trafficking and torture.

Nearly 5,000 kilometres (3,000 miles) away in the northeastern Syrian city of Qamishli, AFP video journalist Gihad Darwish watched the story unfold in denial, disbelief, then unshakeable horror. Among those mangled decomposing bodies in the truck were his two brothers-in-law and friends.