Alan Kurdi

Alan Kurdi (born Alan Shenu), initially reported as Aylan Kurdi, was a two-year-old Syrian boy (initially reported as having been three years old) of Kurdish ethnic background whose image made global headlines after he drowned on 2 September 2015 in the Mediterranean Sea along with his mother and brother.

Alan and his family were Syrian refugees trying to reach Europe from Turkey amid the European refugee crisis (see timeline).

Photographs of his body were taken by Turkish journalist Nilüfer Demir and quickly went viral, prompting international responses.

Since the Kurdi family had reportedly been trying to reach Canada, his death and the wider refugee crisis became an issue in the 2015 Canadian federal election.

Kurdi is believed to have been born in Kobanî, Syria.

He was two years and two months old when he died.

A Syrian journalist stated that the family name was Shenu; "Kurdi" was used in Turkey because of their ethnic background.

After moving between various cities in northern Syria to escape the civil war and ISIL, his family settled in Turkey.

The family returned to Kobanî at the beginning of 2015, but returned to Turkey in June 2015 when ISIL attacked Kobanî again.

During this time, Kurdi's father arranged for an illegal passage to Kos.

Kurdi's family members were hoping to join their relatives in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, after his aunt Tima Kurdi filed for refugee sponsorship, but this was rejected by the Department of Citizenship and Immigration Canada after the family members were denied an exit visa by Turkish authorities.

According to the department an application by Alan's uncle, Mohammad, was rejected as it was incomplete, and no application was ever received from Abdullah Kurdi, Alan's father.

Abdullah Kurdi said that the Canadian government denied his application for asylum and that they were responsible for the tragedy.

Canadian New Democratic Party (NDP) MP Fin Donnelly told the media that he had hand-delivered their file to Citizenship and Immigration Minister Chris Alexander earlier in the year, but the application was rejected in June 2015 because it was incomplete.

The Kurdi family tried to obtain entry to Canada under a private sponsorship program whereby groups of five people may also sponsor an individual or family.

They are required to demonstrate that they can provide roughly 27,000 Canadian dollars to support a family of four refugees.

According to Alexandra Kotyk, project manager of Lifeline Syria, a refugee settlement group in Toronto, the program requires that people seeking to come to Canada from Turkey first be declared refugees by the Turkish government.

She said that was often a difficult or impossible condition to fulfill.

In the early hours of 2 September 2015, Kurdi and his family boarded a small plastic or rubber inflatable boat, which capsized about five minutes after leaving Bodrum in Turkey.

Sixteen people were in the boat, which was designed for a maximum of eight people.

They were trying to reach the Greek island of Kos, about 30 minutes (4 km) from Bodrum.

Kurdi's father said: "We had no life vests", but also said they were wearing life jackets, but they "were all fake".

Others have stated that they believed that they were wearing life jackets but the items were ineffective.

It was later stated on Syrian radio that the Kurdi family paid $5,860 for their four spaces on the boat, which had twelve other passengers on it despite being only about five metres long.

Alan Kurdi's mother joined the trip despite her fear of being on the open sea.

Tima Kurdi, Alan Kurdi's aunt, had advised her sister not to go.

The individuals on the boat evaded the Turkish Coastguard by setting out from an isolated beach late at night.

Around 5:00a.m., authorities started an investigation after an emergency call that a boat had capsized and bodies were coming ashore.

The bodies of Kurdi and another child were discovered by two locals at around 6:30a.m. The two men moved the bodies from the water, where Kurdi was later photographed by a Turkish press photographer.

On 3 September 2015, Alan Kurdi along with his brother, Galib, and their mother, Rehana, were taken to Kobanî for burials, which took place the next day.

It is Islamic tradition to bury the dead within 24 hours if possible.

The Siege of Kobanî ended in March 2015 and Islamic State attacks on what was left of the city stopped completely in August 2015.

Turkish authorities later arrested four individuals in connection with the illegal journey, although they appeared to be low-level intermediaries.

Alan Kurdi's father, Abdullah Kurdi, has stated in some of his interviews that the inflatable boat became uncontrollable as its engine had failed, with the 'captain' abandoning it and everyone else.

Some Turkish sources claimed that in his first interview with the Doğan News Agency, he gives a different account of the event; he also states that following two unsuccessful attempts to cross into the Greek island Kos, his family provided its own boat with its own means.

> However, Abdullah never confirmed the Doğan News Agency interview.

An Iraqi survivor from the same boat, Zainab Abbas, who also lost two children from the attempted crossing, told reporters that Abdullah had been presented to her as the "captain", that he was driving the overcrowded boat too fast, causing it to flip over, and that he pleaded with her while they were still both in the water not to report him to anyone in authority.

Abbas said her family escaped out of Baghdad from ISIS and she was angry because all the media attention was on Alan Kurdi and Abdullah Kurdi, and not on her family.

She later returned to Baghdad and said her dead children's bodies had not been correctly prepared for burial and called on Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott to grant her family asylum so they could escape the Islamic State.

The Reuters agency reported that interviews with two other passengers in the boat, Iraqis Ahmed Hadi Jawwad (Zainab Abbas's husband), and 22-year-old Amir Haider, corroborated Abbas's account.