Migrant father paid €4,000 for boat trip … and watched his family drown one by one

The father of the three-year-old migrant whose body washed up on a Turkish beach paid €4,000 to a people smuggler to help his family flee to a better life. Kurdish refugee Abdullah Kurdi borrowed the money to take his wife and two children on the 15ft dinghy from Turkey to Greece, only for it to capsize in rough seas. The people smuggler left abandoned his 12 passengers to their fate. Abdullah clung to the wreckage and his family but his children, Aylan, three, and Ghalib, five, and wife Rehana, were washed away one by one and drowned. He survived after hours in the water but will be heading home to Kobane in Syria to bury his family.

I was even paying rent for them in Turkey, but it is horrible the way they treat Syrians there

Aylan’s aunt, Teema Kurdi

The pictures of Aylan’s body face down in the surf and being carried away by a rescue worker have provoked anger and sympathy across the world. It also emerged that the family, one of hundreds of thousands fleeing the conflict in Syria, dreamed of a new life in Canada. They decided to cross into Europe after their privately sponsored refugee application to the Canadian authorities was rejected in June. Abdullah’s sister, Teema, a hairdresser who has lived in Vancouver for 20 years, said: “I was trying to sponsor them, and I have my friends and my neighbours who helped me with the bank deposits, but we couldn’t get them out, and that is why they went in the boat.” Her brother’s only wish now was to return to Kobane with his dead wife and children, bury them and be buried alongside them, she added. Police in Turkey say they have arrested four suspected traffickers over the deaths.

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