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Relatives of drowned Syrian boy welcomed to Canada

After the tragedy Alan’s father Abdullah Kurdi said family hoped to join his sister Tima in Canada.

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Tima said the rejection was to blame for Abdullah making the risky boat trip that killed his wife and two young sons.


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Family members of Syrian boy Alan Kurdi, whose drowning off the coast of Turkey triggered an global outcry, are expected to arrive in Canada as refugees.


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Kurdi’s brother Mohammad, his wife Ghouson Dakouri and their five children touched down Monday at Vancouver International Airport.

“It’s a family business”, she says of the new venture, nestled between a children’s reading centre and an optometry clinic in a nondescript strip mall.

Alan’s father, Abdullah Kurdi, chose to attempt the treacherous trip after the Canadian government rejected his brother Mohammed’s original refugee application.

“I’m happy! Very happy!” he said.

Reuters/Jimmy Jeong Tima Kurdi (left), embraces her nephew Rezan Kurdi, 8, as her brother Mohammed Kurdi (not shown) arrives with his family at Vancouver International airport in Vancouver, British Columbia.

The Liberals have committed to taking in 25,000 refugees by the end of February, although they admit they will likely fall short of their revised target to settle 10,000 by the end of the year.

An official with Citizenship and Immigration Canada invited Tima Kurdi to re-apply for Mohammed and his family in mid-October, as the government was no longer asking for difficult-to-obtain United Nations documents.

“A feeling I could not express, it was very emotional.”

Perhaps it’s us who should be giving thanks to her, rather than the other way around. An aunt was stuck in Istanbul, nursing a baby, as her son & daughter worked 18-hour shifts in a sweatshop so the family might eat.

“When I couldn’t find them in our meeting point in [Bodrum] where we normally meet, I went to the hospital and got the bad news”.

“They’re like every single one of us in the West”, Kurdi says, her fingers playing anxiously with the tissue she holds in her lap. “Please don’t close the door in their face”. It capsized, and his wife and children drowned.

The family will stay in the Coquitlam home where Tima Kurdi lives with her husband and children.

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Now, sitting in the middle of her new salon, where the storefront sign was installed just a day earlier, Tima talks about pain, but also about resilience. We’d like to hear from you about this or any other stories you think we should know about. She travelled to Belgium, Germany and Turkey, helping give a voice to those displaced by the war in Syria.

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