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Some surviving relatives of drowned Kurdish toddler Aylan Kurdi, whose beached corpse became a worldwide symbol of the Syrian refugee crisis, will be admitted to Canada, broadcaster CBC has reported.
Warning: This story includes a graphic image that some readers may uncover distressing.
The three-year-old died after his loved ones, sheltering in Turkey from the war in Syria, decided to make a desperate bid to attain Greece in a flimsy inflatable boat.
The sight of Aylan’s physique, face down on the Turkish shore, was captured by news photographers and galvanised public opinion about the planet as hundreds of thousands of refugees arrived in Europe.
Aylan’s mother and brother died in the identical accident.
Now, according to the boy’s aunt Tima Kurdi, who already lives in Canada, authorities have mentioned Aylan’s other aunt, uncle and five cousins will be granted asylum as part of a larger package of arrivals.
“It will come about,” she told CBC. “They will bring them.”
The boy’s uncle had previously made an application for refugee status at the Canadian mission in Turkey, but was refused simply because of incomplete documentation.
Canada is setting up an air bridge to bring in 10,000 Syrian refugees from camps in the Middle East before the finish of the year and 15,000 much more in the initial two months of 2016.
Photo: A Turkish police officer carries the body of toddler from the waters at Bodrum, southern Turkey, on September 2, 2015. The toddler, Aylan Kurdi, drowned when the asylum seeker boat he was on overturned whilst attempting to make the trip from Syria to Greece. (AFP: Dogan News Agency)AFP
Subjects: refugees, neighborhood-and-society, unrest-conflict-and-war, canada, turkey, syrian-arab-republic