KUCUK KENDIRLI, Turkey—The Syrian man who survived a capsizing during a desperate voyage from Turkey to Greece buried his wife and two sons on Friday in their hometown of Kobani, returning them to the conflict-torn Syrian Kurdish region they had fled.
With the burial, Abdullah Kurdi abandoned any plans of leaving his homeland again.
“He only wanted to go to Europe for the sake of his children,” said Suleiman Kurdi, an uncle of the grieving father. “Now that they’re dead, he wants to stay here in Kobani next to them.”
The haunting image of the 3-year-old Aylan Kurdi washed up on a Turkish beach focused the world’s attention on the wave of migration fueled by war and deprivation.
The three bodies were flown to a city near Turkey’s border with Syria, from where police-protected funeral vehicles made their way to the border town of Suruc and crossed into Kobani. Legislators from Turkey accompanied Abdullah Kurdi to Kobani. Journalists and well-wishers were stopped at a checkpoint some 3 kilometers (2 miles) from the border.
Scores of casually dressed mourners clustered around as the bodies were laid in the dry, bare earth of the Martyrs Cemetery. Clouds of dust rose as dirt was shoveled over the graves.
Some graves in the cemetery were haphazardly marked out with borders of concrete blocks.
