Family of drowned Syrian boy Aylan Kurdi wanted to come to Canada

His 5-year-old brother Galip and mother Rehan, 35, also died after their boat capsized while trying to reach the Greek island of Kos.

The newspaper reported the UN would not register the family as refugees, and the Turkish government would not grant them exit visas.

G5 applications allow at least five Canadian citizens to sponsor refugees to move to the country on the condition that they give them emotional and financial support.

‘I was even paying rent for them in Turkey, but it is frightful the way they treat Syrians there’.

The first of the images taken by photographer Nilufer Demir of Turkey’s private Dogan news agency, shows a Syrian boy identified as Aylan Kurdi, 3, face down on the beach of the southwestern resort town of Bodrum.

That tiny boy, who was later pictured being gently carried from the beach by a Turkish policeman, has been named in the media as Aylan Kurdi. Thought to be fleeing the Syrian Civil War, the family from the Kurdish city of Kobane reportedly paid 4,000 euros in hopes of reaching Greece and eventually moving to meet up with relatives in Canada. “I took my wife and my kids in my arms and I realized they were all dead”, he said.

The politician said he delivered a letter on behalf of Kurdi to Citizenship and Immigration Minister Chris Alexander in March but that the sponsorship request was not approved.

The pictures were tweeted by journalist Sakir Khader, who wrote: “He survived the violence of the Syrian war, but died on his way to a new peaceful life in Europe“.

After the boat flipped the family clung to the boat and Abdullah tried to cling onto his two children and wife, but one by one they were washed away by waves, reports Al Aan TV reporter Jenan Moussa.

Another 15 people were rescued and the coastguard, backed by helicopters, was continuing its search for three more who were still missing, a statement said.

Greek authorities, coping with what has become the biggest migration crisis in living memory, said the boy was among a group of refugees escaping Islamic State in Syria.

In heartbreaking contrast to the photo that made headlines, an undated one purportedly showing Aylan and his brother before they embarked on their tragic boat journey – laughing and cuddling a teddy bear – began circulating on social media on Wednesday evening.

“Four bodies had been pulled from the central Mediterranean on Tuesday and 781 migrants rescued, mostly from Nigeria, Ivory Coast and Senegal”, said the United Nations refugee agency UNHCR.