Advertisement

Drowned Boys' Father Tells How Boat Capsized

The father of a three-year-old boy photographed lying dead on a beach has said all he wants to do is "lie in a grave" with his children.

Abdullah Kurdi, a Kurdish Syrian who also lost another of his sons and his wife, described the moments before he realised his family had drowned.

He said he was forced to take control of the boat after the captain panicked and jumped into the sea in high waves.

"We went into the sea for four minutes and the captain saw that the waves were so high and as he tried to steer the boat we were hit immediately," he said.

"He panicked and dived into the sea and fled.

"I took over and started steering, but the waves were so high that the boat flipped immediately.

"I took my wife and my kids in my arms and I realised they were all dead."

He added: "My kids were the most beautiful children in the world. Wonderful. They woke me up every morning to play with them and now, they are all gone.

"Now all I want is to lie in a grave next to my wife and children."

After he spoke through a translator to reporters, TV footage showed him wailing in despair.

The photograph of three-year-old Aylan Kurdi has highlighted the issue of desperate migrants risking their lives to try to reach Europe.

The bodies of Aylan and Galip, five, were washed up on a beach near the seaside resort town of Bodrum on Wednesday.

They were among hundreds of thousands of people who have been trying to reach Europe for a better life, many fleeing war or civil strife.

Mr Kurdi spoke to the media outside the morgue where they had been taken in Yerkesik town, Mugla province, a short distance from Bodrum.

Earlier he explained his family were among 12 people on the crowded vessel.

He said: "There were 12 of us and it was overloaded. With the man who operated the boat, there were 13 of us."

It has been reported that the family had attempted to get a sponsor to allow them to get to Canada where they could apply for refugee status.

They are understood to have been originally from Damascus but ended up moving to Kobani from which they were forced to flee to Turkey because of severe fighting.

Mr Kurdi's sister Tima, who emigrated to Canada 20 years ago, said she had tried to get permission for them to travel across the Atlantic to be with her but it had been rejected because of the complexities involved in refugee applications from Turkey.

She wrote on Facebook: "My deepest condolences to my brother's family who suffered a tragic death in search of a better life.

"Where is the humanity in the world. They did not deserve this. My heart is broken. Rest in peace Angels."

The National Post reported that Ms Kurdi's MP in Canada, Fin Donnelly, said he hand-delivered the Kurdis' file to Conservative Immigration Minister Chris Alexander in March as part of the refugee-status application.

Mr Alexander announced he had suspended his re-election campaign on Thursday to return to Ottawa as a result.

He said in a statement: "I am meeting with officials to ascertain both the facts of the case of the Kurdi family and to receive an update on the migrant crisis."

In an interview on Wednesday, Mr Alexander insisted Canada had a good record of humanitarian aid, saying the country had already taken 2,500 Syrian refuges and more than 20,000 from Iraq.

He told CBC: "We are the most generous country to refugees in the world. We take one in ten resettled refugees annually.

"The numbers grow quickly through private sponsorship and government assistance."

But opposition Liberal Party leader Justin Trudeau said Prime Minister Stephen Harper's Conservative government had ignored pleas to accept more refugees and said the immigration minister looking into the case was too little too late.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan accused Western governments of indifference, saying they shared the blame for the deaths of refugees off the coast of Turkey.

One of Greece's interior ministers Antonis Makrydimitris said that 45,000 migrants arrived in Greece in July this year, compared to 2,103 migrants in July 2014.