Light The Dark candlelight vigils were held in Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide, Perth, Darwin and Hobart to welcome refugees to Australia and honour the life of Aylan Kurdi.
The image of Aylan's tiny body, washed on to a Turkish beach after his family's failed bid to reach Europe by boat, has become a symbol of the humanitarian crisis in the Middle East.
In Melbourne, Asylum Seeker Resource Centre spokeswoman Pamela Curr led a minute's silence for Aylan as rain fell on the thousands who gathered in the Treasury Gardens, and along Spring Street and Treasury Place.
"It's amazing how dark it is up here, but by golly it's not dark down there," Ms Curr told the vigil. "I can see the hearts of Melbourne are warm and alight."
Ms Curr said refugee supporters would protest "until our government opens its heart, opens its mind and opens to doors of Australia".
"What we need to do now is open our hearts to the Syrians, to the Afghanis and to all those who are fleeing," she said.
"We can do it." Prime Minister Tony Abbott has said Australia will take in a "significant number" of Syrian refugees within the existing humanitarian intake quota. In Sydney, more than 10,000 people attended the Hyde Park vigil.
The head of Grandmothers Against the Detention of Refugee Children, Gaby Judd, said she was horrified by the images of Aylan and helped organise the vigil.
"All of us are grandmothers caring for their grandchildren now," she told AAP.
"My grandchildren are one and three, and I look at them and it just seems so unfair that they have the freedom and then the next day I go to Villawood and they (the children there) don't."
The vigils were organised by a wide range of community groups including Amnesty International, the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre and Save the Children.
Light The Dark rallies will be held in Canberra on Tuesday and Brisbane on Friday.
Karez Najifar, 5, dressed in traditional Kurdish dress during a refugee vigil at Melbourne's Treasury Gardens on Monday, Sept. 7, 2015. Thousands braved the wet weather to honor drowned refugee boy Aylan Kurdi. (AAP Image/Jamie Duncan) NO ARCHIVING Source: AAP
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