Father says drowned Syrian boy ‘slipped through my hands’

The father of a 3-year-old Syrian boy washed up on a Turkish beach yesterday whose image shocked the world said his children “slipped through my hands” as their boat was taking in water en route to Greece.

“I was holding my wife’s hand. But my children slipped through my hands. We tried to cling to the boat, but it was deflating. It was dark and everyone was screaming,” Abdullah Kurdi told Turkey’s Dogan news agency of the sinking that also killed his wife and 5-year old child.

Meanwhile, Turkish authorities have arrested four suspected traffickers over the deaths of 12 Syrian migrants in two boat sinkings, including the Kurdis, Dogan says.

The four, all Syrian nationals aged between 30 and 41, are accused of “causing the death of more than one person” and “trafficking migrants,” the news agency reports.

They are to appear in court later today and television pictures show the men being led away by police as they covered their faces.

— AFP