Relatives of Alan Kurdi, a Syrian boy whose lifeless body washed up on a Turkish beach in September, igniting a worldwide concern for the refugee crisis, landed in Vancouver on Monday.
Garbed in Canadian reds and whites, Kurdi's uncle, aunt and five cousins-members of a family that has come to symbolize the plight of Syrian refugees-sprinted out of the customs area at Vancouver's airport to embrace their relatives and begin their new lives, according to The Globe and Mail.
Mohammed Kurdi and his family were sponsored by Mohammed's sister Tima Kurdi, who wiped away tears as she greeted her relatives at the airport's arrival gates.
"I'm happy! Very happy!" he said in English to a crowd of reporters gathered around the family, according to The Guardian.
"Thank you Canadian people. Thank you prime minister Trudeau for opening the door and showing the world how everyone should welcome refugees and save lives," Tima Kurdi said.
The Kurdis are among 25,000 Syrian refugees the Canadian government has pledged to welcome by the end of February, although Immigration minister John McCallum said last week the government will likely not meet its target of having 10,000 of them on Canadian soil by January.
Kurdi's other brother and father of Alan Kurdi, Abdullah, chose not to come to Canada and instead lives in a Kurdish region of northern Iraq, but wished he could be in Vancouver for the reunion, Tima said, according to the Vancouver Sun.
When Mohammad Kurdi was asked whether his family longed to return to Syria eventually, he said: "God willing, we want to stay in Canada."
