Drowned Syrian boys buried in hometown they fled

The haunting image of the man’s toddler, Aylan Kurdi, washed up on Turkish beach focused the world’s attention on the wave of migration fuelled by war and deprivation

The Syrian man who survived a capsizing during a desperate voyage from Turkey to Greece, on Friday buried his wife and two sons in their hometown of Kobani, returning them to the conflict-torn Syrian Kurdish region they had fled.

The haunting image of the man’s 3-year-old son, Aylan Kurdi, washed up on Turkish beach focused the world’s attention on the wave of migration fuelled by war and deprivation.

The three bodies were flown to a city near Turkey’s border with Syria, from where police-protected funeral vehicles made their way to the border town of Suruc and crossed into Kobani. Legislators from Turkey accompanied Abdullah Kurdi to Kobani. Journalists and well-wishers were stopped at a checkpoint some 3 km from the border.

Aylan’s body was discovered on a Turkish beach in sneakers, blue shorts and a red shirt on Wednesday after the small rubber boat he and his family were in capsized. They were among 12 migrants who drowned off the Turkish coast of Bodrum that day.

The route between Bodrum in Turkey and Kos, just a few miles, is one of the shortest from Turkey to the Greek islands, but it remains dangerous. Hundreds of people a day try to cross it despite the well-documented risks.

Abdullah Kurdi said the overloaded boat flipped over moments after the captain, described as a Turkish man, panicked and abandoned the vessel, leaving Abdullah as the de facto commander of a small boat overmatched by high seas.

In a police statement later leaked to the Turkish news agency Dogan, Abdullah Kurdi gave a different account, denying that a smuggler was aboard. However, smugglers often instruct migrants that if caught they should deny their presence.

A Canadian legislator said the family, fleeing the conflict in Syria, had been turned down in a bid for legal entry to Canada even though it had close relatives there offering financial backing and shelter, but Canada’s Department of Citizenship and Immigration later denied that assertion.