Canadian whose ministry rejected drowned boy 'deeply saddened'

Canadian Immigration Minister Chris Alexander says the tragic photo of young Aylan Kurdi, a 3-year-old Syrian boy who drowned off the coast of Turkey along with his mother and brother “broke hearts around the world.”

The boy’s aunt in Vancouver had applied to sponsor the family, but the application was rejected by Canadian authorities.

Alexander says, “Like all Canadians, I was deeply saddened by that image and of the many other images of the plight of the Syrian and Iraqi migrants fleeing persecution at the hands of ISIS.”

He says Canada has one of the most generous per capita immigration and refugee resettlement programs in the world, and was planning to accept 23,000 Iraqi refugees and 11,300 Syrians.

— AP