ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – Five years on from his tragic death, the family of Syrian refugee Alan Kurdi have urged the international community to not ignore the plight of refugees.
The refugee crisis received new media attention after images of Kurdi, 3, washed up on a Turkish beach spread across the globe.
The toddler drowned with his mother and brother Ghalib, 4, after their boat capsized on the way to Greece on September 2, 2015. His death led to calls for European leaders to offer refugees safe and legal passage.
"We cannot close our eyes and turn our back and walk away from them," his aunt Tima Kurdi said at a press conference held by the German migrant rescue group Sea-Eye, AFP reported.
"People all over the world continue to suffer and it's getting worse, not any better. And they are asking for help," she said.
The family are from the Kurdish city of Kobane in northern Syria.
Three individuals were each sentenced to 125 years in prison in mid-March for their involvement in the tragedy a week after they were captured in Adana, southern Turkey.
Sea-Eye named a rescue ship in memory of Kurdi in February 2019.
“Those people are innocent victims, they flee from force, not by choice,” said Tima, who founded the Kurdi Foundation, which aims to help refugee children.
“Sadly, our family's tragedy is one of many,” she added.
During the height of Europe's refugee crisis, more than 1 million people mostly from Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan, fled to Europe in 2015, many of them by crossing the Mediterranean in flimsy boats that often sank.
In March, the UN migration agency said an estimated 20,000 people have died while trying to cross the Mediterranean since 2014.
