The policeman hugging the Syrian boy is Redžep Arifi

The policeman whose photograph with a Syrian boy in a "fatherly" embrace caused a wave of emotions on social networks is named Redžep Arifi, reports the Patria News Agency.

He is from Preševo, and has been engaged in Miratovac for a month, where refugees arriving in Serbia via Greece and Macedonia are welcomed. Arifi's touching photograph was first published on Twitter by BBC journalist Menvin Rana, with the accompanying text:

"Syrians are full of praise for the Serbian police. They say that Serbian police officers are good and that they are the first ones who do not treat them like animals."

Arifi has been a police officer at the Police Administration in Preševo since 2002. His cousin Valjon Arifi told Tanjug that Redžep was not aware that his pictures were being watched by the whole world on social networks until he went to his station, where one of his colleagues informed him about it.

Valjon Arifi says he met Redžep after he learned he was popular, but that he did not want to talk about it.

"He just briefly said that it was a human act and the duty of every humane person," says Valjon, who also spends time with refugees in Miratovac every day.

His photograph spread rapidly on Facebook and Twitter, and a few hours later, Rana, a journalist for BBC Radio 4, posted several more photographs of Arifi on the same social network.

"For all those who were delighted by the picture of the Serbian policeman playing with a baby from Syria, here are additional photos," she wrote next to the pictures.

As his cousin told Tanjug, Redžep lost his father in a traffic accident when he was only six months old. He is not married, has no children, and is 34 years old, writes B92.