Dad wants to be buried next to sons

Washington: The grief-stricken father of the migrant brothers whose bodies washed up on the shores of the Mediterranean phoned relatives after the tragedy but only managed to utter the words: “My wife and two boys are dead.”

 

Little Galip, five, and Aylan Kurdi, three, were on an overcrowded dinghy filled with refugees fleeing the war in Syria when it capsized shortly into the crossing to the Greek island of Kos.

 

Pictures of Aylan’s limp body in the sand and of it being carried by a local gendarme has come to epitomise the crisis engulfing Europe as a tide of humanity flees the horrors in the Middle East. 

 

Both boys died in the sea alongside their mother, Rehan, while their father Abdullah survived. Aylan and Galip, who were not wearing lifejackets, did not stand a chance when the boat overturned in the dead of night, some 30 minutes after it set off from the holiday resort of Bodrum in Turkey. 

 

Their lifeless bodies, still clad in tiny T-shirts and shorts, washed up on Ali Hoca Point Beach in Bodrum and boatmen alerted the authorities. The father, who is yet to come out of the shock, told the media that he wanted to be buried next to his son’s grave after he died.