Father Buries His Drowned Toddler, Family in Syria


Father Buries His Drowned Toddler, Family in Syria

TEHRAN (Tasnim) – The father of a 3-year-old Syrian boy whose drowning off Turkey shocked the world buried his son, another child and his wife in an emotional funeral in Ain al-Arab Friday.

Local journalist Mustefa Ebdi said 3-year-old Aylan Kurdi, his 4-year-old brother Ghaleb and their mother Rihana were buried in the Martyrs Cemetery in the Syrian-Kurdish border town, known in Kurdish as Kobane, AFP reportes.

The father, Abdullah Kurdi, “looked broken and numb” as he addressed a large gathering, said Ebdi, who attended the service.

“I don’t blame anyone else for this. I just blame myself,” the devastated father told mourners.

“I will have to pay the price for this the rest of my life.”

He said his children were only a few of the many victims of Syria’s 4-year-old conflict and pleaded for Arab countries in particular to find a “solution to the tragedies” gripping his country.

Relatives of the Kurdi family gathered in Ain al-Arab as a gaunt Abdullah carried the bodies of his young children to the cemetery, an AFP photographer said.

There, he laid the tiny body of Aylan, wrapped in a snow-white shroud, into a small grave dug in the red-brown earth.

The two children and their mother drowned off the Turkish coast Wednesday while trying to reach Europe across the Aegean Sea.

A photograph of tiny Aylan’s lifeless body on the beach at Bodrum caused a global outcry and has put a human face to the dangers refugees risk trying to reach safety in Europe.

The heart-rending deaths of Aylan, his brother and his mother have dominated headlines and sparked condemnation from world leaders. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan accused European leaders of turning the Mediterranean into a “cemetery.”

Ain al-Arab was the scene of fierce fighting between Kurdish militias and ISIL militants for control of northern Syria in the country’s civil war. Kurdish forces ousted ISIL from the town after a months-long struggle in January.

Abdullah’s family was displaced several times inside Syria and had returned to Ain al-Arab in June in hopes of settling there.

But ISIL fighters re-entered the town, holding hostages in several buildings in a two-day standoff that left more than 200 civilians dead.

The family then decided to try to reach Europe via Turkey, Ebdi said.

After a month of saving up and borrowing from relatives, the family of four boarded a tiny inflatable boat with dozens of other refugees to try to reach the island of Kos.

In a harrowing tale of how the boat capsized, a tearful Abdullah said his children “slipped through my hands.”

Millions of Syrians have been displaced internally since Syria’s conflict began in 2011, and more than four million have been forced to flee the country.

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