The father of Galip and Aylan Kurdi
ISTANBUL — The father of Galip and Aylan Kurdi, the young refugee boys from Syria whose drowning off a Turkish beach has touched a global nerve, said Thursday that his family had paid smugglers more than $2,000 for a voyage to a Greek island in a 15-foot boat that was quickly upended by five-foot waves. His wife also drowned. “The waves were high, the boat started swaying and shaking. We were terrified,” said the father, Abdullah Kurdi, 40, a Syrian Kurd from the town of Kobani near the Turkish border. “I rushed to my kids and wife while the boat was flipping upside down. And in a second we were all drowning in the water.” Mr. Kurdi, who said his family had long been seeking to emigrate to Canada, spoke in a telephone interview arranged by local officials from Turkey’s Mugla Province, where he was completing paperwork for the bodies of his wife, Rehan, 27; Galip, 5; and Aylan, 3; to be returned to Kobani for a funeral. “The waves were high, the boat started swaying and shaking...