The aunt of the Syrian boy whose dead body was photographed on a Turkish beach after he drowned trying to escape to Europe said she wanted to bring her family members to Coquitlam.
Tima Kurdi told reporters outside her Como Lake-area home that she sent money to her brother, Abdullah Kurdi, three weeks ago to help him, his wife and two sons get to the Greek island of Kos.
The family was en route when the boat they were in capsized. Abdullah was able to swim to safety but his family drowned and a photograph of the body of his youngest, Alan, lying face down on a beach quickly spread around the world.
“They didn’t deserve to die,” Tima told reporters Thursday morning sitting next to portraits of the of the deceased boys, Alan and Ghalib. “They were going for a better life. It shouldn’t happen.”
Tima’s efforts to sponsor her family members were thwarted in Ottawa. She said an application to bring her another brother, Mohammad, to Canada was recently rejected because he was not registered as a refugee with the United Nations.
She said New Westminster-Coquitlam MP Fin Donnelly had assisted in the process, even taking a letter from the family explaining Mohammad’s situation to Minister of Citizenship and Immigration Chris Alexander, but to no avail.
Mohammad is now in Germany, she added, and she encouraged her other brother, Abdullah, to try and make his way to Europe as well.
After the drownings, Kurdi said she had spoken with Abdullah.
“’If I didn’t send you the money, you wouldn’t go,’” she said she told him. “He said, ‘Don’t blame yourself.’”
Abdullah was initially planning to go to Europe by himself with the intention of sponsoring his wife and two children once he arrived. But he told his sister he could not leave his family behind in Turkey because they did not have the means to support themselves.
Three weeks ago, Tima managed to put together the money to send to her brother to pay smugglers to take him on the boat.
She said Abdullah told her he was concerned about the number of people that were in the speed boat but was assured by the smugglers that it was safe. When a wave hit the side of the boat, he said it capsized and he did all he could to hold his boys above the water.
Abdullah then had to make the decision to leave the bodies of his family behind, Tima added, noting she had spoken last week to her sister-in-law, who was anxious about the journey. “His wife told me on the phone a week ago, ‘I am so scared of the water,’” she said.
Tima said her brother is devastated by the tragedy but hopes that it will get the world’s attention to help the people trying to flee Syria.
“He said to me, ‘My message to the world is please don’t let them them across that water,’” she said. “‘Don’t let them take that journey anymore.’”
gmckenna@tricitynews.com
