Vancouver mourns child refugee deaths

SCORES of white balloons floated over the port of Vancouver, Canada on Saturday, August 5  as part of a ceremony to honor two Syrian children whose deaths at sea off ​​Turkey heightened awareness  around the world  of the  refugee crisis in Europe.

The aunt of three years old, Tima Kurdi, whose drowned body lying on a beach shocked the world, threw a bouquet of yellow flowers on the  water as part of the ceremony She looked at the sky after she and other mourners released balloons, to  which were attached photos of Aylan, 3,  and Ghalib, 5.

Kurdi said she hopes to bring the surviving family to Canada, where she arrived more than two decades ago.

Her brother, Abdullah, has said he wants to leave his home town of Kobani, in Syria, where he returned on Friday to bury his children and his wife Rehanna, Kurdi said.

They drowned after an overloaded boat in which they were traveling capsized. They were attempting to reach the Greek island of Kos.

Abdullah was one of the few survivors. He cannot be alone there, “Kurdi said.

Family, friends and strangers s filled a theater where a funeral ceremony  was held

 Kurdi tearfully recalled Ghalib’s last  telephone to his grandfather, the night before boarding the boat

 The woman wanted to take her two brothers to Canada and first submitted an application on behalf of her brother, Mohammed, which was rejected for being incomplete. Kurdi said she does not blame the Canadian government.

The rejection that prompted Abdullah to embark on the journey with his family ,she said.

She sent him $5,000 to pay smugglers to take them back in a boat.

The trip was the “only option” left to the family to escape the horrors in Syria,