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White balloons drift over Vancouver for Syrian brothers

‘I don’t want to go with them to the water,’ 5-year-old Galip told his grandfather

Tima Kurdi, aunt of late brothers Aylan and Ghalib Kurdi, and her husband Rocco Logozzo walk to the waterfront to release balloons in memory of the boys after a memorial service in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. Photograph: Darryl Dyck/The Canadian Press via AP
Tima Kurdi, aunt of late brothers Aylan and Ghalib Kurdi, and her husband Rocco Logozzo walk to the waterfront to release balloons in memory of the boys after a memorial service in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. Photograph: Darryl Dyck/The Canadian Press via AP
Sun Sept 06 2015 - 15:34

Dozens of white balloons drifted over Vancouver’s harbour on Saturday to honour the young Syrian boys whose deaths at sea sparked worldwide outrage about the refugee crisis.

The boys’ aunt, Tima Kurdi, stood looking at the sky after she and other mourners let go of the balloons, which had photos attached of three-year-old Aylan and Galip (5).

With tears in her eyes, she tossed a bouquet of yellow flowers into the water.

Ms Kurdi said she hopes to bring the rest of her family to Canada, which she made home more than two decades ago.

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Her brother, Abdullah, is not ready to leave his Syrian hometown of Kobani, where his sons and wife Rehanna were buried on Friday, she said.

They drowned after piling into an overloaded boat in Turkey headed for the Greek island of Kos. Her brother was among the few survivors.

“One day, I will bring him here. He cannot be by himself there,” Ms Kurdi said.

Family, friends and strangers packed a small theatre on Saturday for a memorial service.

Ms Kurdi tearfully recalled the last phone call Galip made to his grandfather, the night before he boarded the boat.

“He said to him, ‘Can you bring your truck here and take me? I don’t want to go with them to the water,’” she said.

She said his grandfather reassured Galip not to worry and that he would be OK. In the background, he could hear Aylan laughing. “He never cried, Aylan. He always laughed. He doesn’t know how to cry.”

Ms Kurdi has said she wanted to bring both her brothers to Canada, but she applied first for her eldest sibling Mohammed, whose application was rejected because it was incomplete.

She said she does not blame the Canadian government.

She said the failed application prompted Abdullah to embark on the journey with his family, and she sent him 5,000 dollars (€4,480) to pay smugglers to take them in a boat.

She said the trip was the "only option" left for the family to have a better life in a European country. They were fleeing horrors in Syria, where militants from the Islamic State group had beheaded one of her sister-in-law's relatives.

PA