MUGLA, Turkey
The dead body of a drowned Syrian child, whose picture on a Turkish beach went viral over social media causing worldwide outrage, will be taken to Syrian town of Kobani for burial, his father announced Thursday.
On Wednesday, 12 people, including eight children, drowned after their boat sank en route to the Greek islands in the Aegean Sea. Their bodies had washed up on the shores of Turkey’s tourist destination of Bodrum.
Among the dead Syrian children was Aylan, 2, who was pictured lifeless on the Turkish beach face down. His brother Galip, 3, and their mother Zahin Kurdi, 27, also died in the incident that sparked widespread condemnation and a previously unseen outpouring of emotions from world leaders Thursday.
The father of the drowned children said that he had dreamed of taking his wife and children to Canada, but now he would take their dead bodies to the Syrian town of Kobani.
"Here, in Turkey, I want the whole world to see us. I want the whole world's eyes on us [because] we may have experienced a disaster, but I do not want other people to live the same disaster," Abdullah Kurdi said in a statement to the press in Mugla province's Bodrum district on Thursday.
"We will take their bodies from here to Suruc then to Kobani," he added.
Earlier on Thursday, four Syrians, suspected of being involved in human trafficking that resulted in the death of the 12 people, were taken into custody in Turkey’s south-western province of Mugla, security sources said.
Bodrum coast in the Turkish south-western Mugla province is a preferred location for migrants trying to reach Kos, as the route is considered among the shortest by sea from Asia to EU territory.
In the first five months of 2015, over 42,000 people arrived by sea to Greece, most of them refugees, according to the United Nations Refugee Agency.
