The father of a three-year-old Syrian boy whose body was washed up on a Turkish beach, an image that shocked the world, said on Thursday that his children “slipped through my hands” as their boat was taking in water en route to Greece.
Advertisement
She said Abdullah was a barber originally from Damascus, who fled from Kobani to Turkey but “dreamed of a future in Canada” for his family.
The Times reported that Abdullah “watched helplessly as one exhausted child drowned” and then struggled to push “the other toward [their] mother so he could at least keep his head up.'” Rehan and Galip also drowned, along with at least nine other people. Instead, they showed up with a 15-foot rubber raft that flipped in high waves, dumping Kurdi, his wife, and their two small sons into the sea.
“I was trying to sponsor them“, their aunt Teema Kurdi, a hairdresser in Vancouver, said in an interview with the National Post.
Syrian refugee Abu Al Yaman said that when he saw the photo of little Aylan lying face down on a Turkish beach, “I hugged my daughter tightly, imagining she could have been that innocent child”.
Some of the global media coverage focused on Canada’s role in the tragic death of Alan Kurdi, his five-year-old brother and his mother, details of which shifted over the course of the day. “When they did not come to our meeting point in the town, I went to the hospital and learned the bitter truth”, Kurdi said.
“It’s very easy when you’re using words like refugee and asylum seeker and “othering” words”, she said.
Citizenship and Immigration Canada says it did not receive a refugee application from Abdullah, but confirmed it had received an application from his brother, Mohammed, which “was incomplete and did not meet regulatory requirements”.
The young family hoped to cross the short distance from Turkey to Greece in their final effort to make their way to Europe, but their overcrowded boat capsized and sank before they reached the shore.
Tima says a memorial will be held this Sunday. Logozzo and his wife tried to bring the boy and his family to Canada but their refugee application was denied.
“I saw children working there”.
He said: ‘All I wanted was to give us a better life. “Canada has an obligation to act”, Mulcair said, choking up while speaking during a campaign stop.
Glavin told BBC Radio 5 live yesterday that Kurdi had heard from family members about Abdullah’s desperate battle to save his family in the sea.
“I was even paying rent for them in Turkey, but it is awful the way they treat Syrians there”. Kurdi intends to return to Syria to bury his family. I don’t want people to die anymore.
Advertisement
About 250,000 people have been killed and more than one million wounded in Syria since March 2011, according to United Nations officials. And a big thank you to social media for making it go viral to land a rude knock on every compassionate soul that viewed it.
