Family of drowned Syrian boy lands in Canada

Mohammed Kurdi, his wife and their five children touched down in Vancouver shortly before noon.

The image of three-year-old Alan Kurdi, his lifeless body washed up on a Turkish beach, galvanized the world’s attention on the Syrian refugee crisis.

CBC Television broadcast the arrival of Mohammad Kurdi, his wife and five children in Vancouver, where they had an emotional reunion with his sister Tima Kurdi.

“Thank you Canadian people!”

“Thank you to our Prime Minister (Justin) Trudeau for opening the door and showing the world how everyone should welcome refugees and save lives”.

“I am happy, very happy”, Mohammad Kurdi told reporters at the city’s main airport. I walked through that tunnel, I did not see that light yet, but it doesn’t mean it’ the end. Alan, 3, drowned, along with his mother, Rehenna, and older brother Ghalib, 4, when their boat capsized off the coast of Turkey en route to Greece.

Alan’s father, Abdullah, is residing in northern Iraq and has declined both his sister’s request and the federal government’s invitation for him to come to Canada.

And to Abdullah, whose plight was on the family’s mind during their 10-hour flight to Vancouver, Tima said, in tears: “We wish you were with us, I can not say … but you’re always here”.

Alan Kurdi’s father had attempted the risky water crossing after the Canadian government rejected his brother Mohammed’s original refugee application.

But while they said they were happy to be reunited, they said what they really wished for was a peaceful future for Syria.

“I’m calling it Kurdi Hair Design”, says Kurdi about the salon, nestled between a children’s reading centre and an optometry clinic in a nondescript Port Coquitlam strip mall.

An official with Citizenship and Immigration Canada invited Tima Kurdi to re-apply for Mohammed and his family in mid-October, as the government was no longer asking for difficult-to-obtain United Nations documents.

She told BBC Radio 5 Live on Sunday that she was unable to look at the photo of the toddler, which became a symbol for the refugee crisis.

Tima Kurdi said at the time she had tried to sponsor Mohammad to come to Canada but was not successful.

Domestically, the images of Kurdi’s death up-ended an otherwise predictable Canadian election campaign, and knocked the incumbent Conservatives onto their heels after it was revealed that Mohammad and his family had applied for, and been denied, refugee status in Canada.

She says the children, at least one of whom had been working to help the family make ends meet in Turkey, will now have the chance to attend school and have a normal life. We’d like to hear from you about this or any other stories you think we should know about.