Honouring the boy on a Turkish beach
Death of asylum seekers on Rio Grande prompts child’s aunt to speak out
VANCOUVER— The Vancouver aunt of a 2-year-old boy whose death prompted an outcry on behalf of refugees says the world must demand compassion and aid for today’s asylum seekers.
Tima Kurdi spoke out after the bodies of a father and daughter turned up on a river bank in Mexico this week.
In 2015, Alan Kurdi’s body washed ashore on a beach in Turkey. Photos of the toddler, who drowned while fleeing Syria with his family, galvanized support for refugees around the world. And Tima Kurdi said it’s time for people to come together again in a unified voice for refugees.
“The tragedy, the images keep coming,” Kurdi said in the living room of her home in Metro Vancouver, where a large photo of Alan and his brother Ghalib hangs over the fireplace.
“If we look around there is an image (of a new tragedy) coming every single day.
“What are we doing? Every citizen around the globe should not be silent anymore.”
On Monday, Oscar Alberto Martinez Ramirez and his 2-year-old daughter, Valeria, were found drowned on the banks of the Rio Grande on the U.S. border with Mexico.
Valeria was tucked into her father’s shirt in an apparent attempt to ensure the river’s current didn’t pull her away from him. According to the Associated Press, Martinez had placed his daughter on the river bank in the United States and doubled back to help her mother.
The girl jumped back into the river and her father swam to her, reaching her before the current swept them both away.
Details of the tragedy were reported to have been gleaned through the “screams” and “tears” of the pair’s partner and mother, Tania Vanessa Avalos, as she spoke to police at the scene. The family were trying to reach the United States in search of asylum after fleeing violence and poverty in their native El Salvador, the Associated Press reported.
Tima said the red pants and the way Valeria’s arm wraps around her father’s neck in the photo of the tragedy caused the phone to fall silent when she called her brother — Alan’s father — in Iraq on Wednesday morning. Abdullah Kurdi had not seen the image of Martinez and Valeria until Tima sent him the link during the phone call. The red pants worn by Valeria were almost the same colour as the shirt Alan wore in the photo of him lying face down on the Turkish beach.
Tima said Abdullah told her it brought back horrifying memories of the exact moment he clutched his family and listened to them scream. It ended the family’s flight from Syria and ended their dream of arriving in Canada. The overloaded boat the family was on capsized after the motor stopped working and they had drifted further out to sea in rough weather.
Tima said Abdullah asked her “‘Why is it only the poor people who suffer most? Why?’
“And he couldn’t speak anymore,” Tima said.
Alan’s photo mobilized action at the time, she said. Canada took in roughly 25,000 refugees in a matter of months. European countries followed. Now it seems the world needs another wakeup call, said Tima, who has become an advocate for refugees and has visited camps. She said media must play a role in pushing people to act, calling the images a “good weapon” in bringing attention to the plight of refugees.
“I don’t want them to blur those pictures anymore,” she said. “The image can move people to take action. Enough is enough.”
The tragedy of Martinez and Valeria is one of many.
The Associated Press reports in 2018 more than 280 people died trying to cross into the U.S. from Mexico. Those opposed to helping refugees need a dose of reality and should consider themselves in the shoes of the millions of people who have fled their countries in the last decade, Tima said.