Sarah Abo reports from Ayvalik, Turkey
It was the haunting image that shook the world: two-year-old Alan Kurdi, washed up on the Turkish coast.
He was wearing the very clothes his aunt, Tima Kurdi, had bought for him a year earlier.
She is wracked with dreadful guilt, that because of her, little Alan didn’t make it. Ms Kurdi paid for the boat trip that would end her nephew's life.
“I will take that to my grave”, she told SBS News this week.
Alan Kurdi's body lies on the Bodrum coastline in September 2015. Source: AFP / Getty Images
Ms Kurdi has returned to a Turkish beach for the first time since her nephew’s body was found on 2 September 2015.
She has travelled from Canada, where she now lives, for SBS’s TV series Go Back To Where You Came From Live, because she feels it’s her duty to keep Alan’s memory alive.
We met at Ayvalik Beach, five hours north of where Alan was found. She wears a necklace with an image of him and his brother Ghalib enclosed.
She can’t face the water and shudders every time it glistens in her eyes.
Tima Kurdi blames herself for the tragedy. Source: SBS News
“He’s not the only one. What about all the thousands of other children who’ve died fleeing the war?” she says.
As we stand among the pine and olive trees near the shore, she says: “There are no birds here.”
“Everywhere I go, I look up to the trees for birds, I think that’s a sign Alan is watching over me. But here, there are no birds. Alan is not here.”
No choice but to flee
Ms Kurdi’s family were in the Syria capital Damascus at the beginning of the war, seven years ago.
“Can you imagine sending your kids to school and praying to god they’ll come home safe?” she says.
“I remember my niece and nephew, they were just 11 and 12 years old, they went to school and there was a suicide bomber.”
“They [the family] eventually said, enough is enough, we all have young children.”
Her brothers and sisters packed up and left for another part of Syria which seemed safer, Kobanî, where Alan was born. But it proved to be worse.
“No electricity, no food, no medication, no education.”
So they crossed the border into Turkey.
That’s when their real struggles began, Ms Kurdi says. They tried to enter refugee camps, but they were already full.
Like thousands of other families, the adults looked for work, “You have to survive,” she says. But they were told “‘Do you have children? Send them to us, we’ll hire them’.”
The prospect of young teenagers working instead of studying still bothers her. They should be in school, she says, not struggling to put food on the table.
“My brother’s not the only one. Everyone [Syrian refugees] living in Turkey, they’re really struggling.”
“So, like everyone else, they looked to Europe.”
'I only saw that image once'
On the other side of the world, in Canada, Ms Kurdi and her sister-in-law were working on an application to sponsor her family. But the process seemed impossible and back in Turkey, they were getting desperate.
“The [Canadian] Borders were closed, basically. So, I am like everybody else, trying to help family.”
She says she felt compelled to act, and at that time, sent $5,000 over to help her brother’s family with their journey.
She blames herself for what came next.
“I only saw that image once, when the rest of the world, saw that image. And I cannot look at it anymore.”
I only saw that image once, when the rest of the world, saw that image. And I cannot look at it anymore. - Tima Kurdi
“I remember that conversation with my brother, [Alan’s father] Abdullah, when he was in the hospital. He said, ‘I’m standing in front of three dead bodies, my whole life is gone’.”
Alan’s brother Ghalib and mother Rehana also drowned after the overloaded, inflatable boat they were in capsized. They had set out from Bodrum in Turkey late at night to try and reach the Greek island of Kos.
Alan’s brother Galib, pictured with Alan, and their mother Rehana also drowned. Source: AFP / Getty Images
She hopes Alan’s image acted as a wakeup call to the world.
“For four years, people were crying out to the world for help, but the world was silent.”
“In some ways, I really feel that image has changed the world, it’s touched millions of people’s hearts.”
Since then, she has spoken publically about the plight of refugees, willing the world not to forget their everyday struggles, and the heartache of a war they never wanted to be part of.
The Syrian war has left more than 364,792 people dead, according to figures released by the Syrian Observatory last month, and produced more than 5.6 million Syrian refugees.
“Most importantly,” Ms Kurdi says as she touches her necklace, she wants “to be the voice of that little boy, Alan, whose voice will never be heard.”
I want that image to be a permanent reminder in people’s hearts and their minds, and remind them, that millions of people continue to suffer, even today.”
Go Back To Where You Came From Live airs over three nights from 2–4 October, 8.30pm, on SBS and SBS On Demand.
