A Word from the Father of Aylun Kurdi
The smugglers promised Abdullah Kurdi a speed boat that would be safe when he paid them 4,000 euros for 4 places on a boat from Turkey to Greece – it was the first step on the way to his family’s new life in Canada. Instead, the smugglers showed up with a 15-foot rubber raft that flipped in high waves only miles off the shore, dumping Mr. Kurdi, his wife and their two small sons into the sea, along with the other hopeful refugees.
In the water for over three hours, he tried to keep his family afloat despite the lack of life jackets. “I had to shift back and forth, just pushing their heads above the surface.” Abdullah tried to keep his boys, Aylan and Ghalib, afloat, but one drowned in his arms as he screamed over the waves to his wife, Rehan, “Just keep his head above the water!” Moments later, he watched his other son and wife sink. Abdullah, 40, was the only one to survive.
“Now I don’t want anything,” he told the Turkish media a day later, as they filmed him filing out forms at the morgue to claim the bodies of his family. “Even if you give me all the countries in the world, I wouldn’t take them. I feel like I lost my life in the sea yesterday, too.”
It was an image of his youngest son washed up on a Turkish beach that brought public attention to a crisis that has been building for years. It was not the sheer size of the catastrophe — millions and millions (more than 11 million) forced by war and poverty to leave their homes in Syria — but a single tragedy that has clarified the moment.
The photograph has forced Western nations to confront the consequence of a collective failure to help migrants fleeing the Middle East and Africa to Europe in search of opportunity and safety.
Canadian officials were under intense pressure to explain why the Kurdi family, meeting all of the requirements, and on top of that, having family in Vancouver who were willing to financially support them and had submitted letters on their behalf – were unable to get permission to immigrate legally. The government’s response? Incomplete documents.
“All that I want now,” pleaded Abdullah, “is for the smuggling to stop. I want the refugees to stop having to pool the money from all of their family and friends to buy tickets on a boat that takes them to their deaths. Yesterday I went to one of the main smuggling points and asked the people trying to get smuggled into Europe, please, if you must go, at least do not take your children. I told them my story, and some of them changed their minds. War and poverty must be better than the uncertain futures that await refugees in Europe.”
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