The father of a three-year-old boy photographed lying dead on a beach has said all he wants to do is "lie in a grave" with his children.
Abdullah Kurdi, who also lost another of his sons and his wife, described the moments before he realised his family had drowned.
"My kids were the most beautiful children in the world. Wonderful," he said. "They woke me up every morning to play with them and now, they are all gone.
"Now all I want is to lie in a grave next to my wife and children."
After he spoke through a translator to reporters, TV footage showed him wailing in despair.
The photograph of three-year-old Aylan Kurdi has highlighted the issue of desperate refugees risking their lives to try to reach Europe.
The bodies of Aylan and Galip, five, were washed up on a beach near the seaside resort town of Bodrum on Wednesday.
Mr Kurdi spoke to the media outside the morgue where they had been taken in Yerkesik town, Mugla province, a short distance from Bodrum.
Earlier he explained his family were among 12 people on the crowded vessel.
He said: "There were 12 of us and it was overloaded. With the man who operated the boat, there were 13 of us."
Caption: Aylan, 3 (left), who drowned along with his brother Galip, 5 (right), and their mother, Rihan.
Refugee status
It has been reported that the family had attempted to get a sponsor to allow them to get to Canada where they could apply for refugee status.
Conservative Immigration Minister Chris Alexander annouced he had suspended his re-election campaign on Thursday to return to Ottawa.
The National Post reported that Canadian MP Fin Donnelly said he hand-delivered the Kurdis' file to Mr Alexander in March.
He said in a statement: "I am meeting with officials to ascertain both the facts of the case of the Kurdi family and to receive an update on the migrant crisis."
In an interview on Wednesday, Mr Alexander insisted Canada had a good record of humanitarian aid, saying the country had already taken 2,500 Syrian refuges and more than 20,000 from Iraq.
He told CBC: “We are the most generous country to refugees in the world. We take one in ten resettled refugees annually. The numbers grow quickly through private sponsorship and government assistance.”
The aunt of Aylan Kurdi, the small boy whose body was pictured washed up on a Turkish beach, has expressed her anguish at the death of her nephews and sister-in-law in a public Facebook post.
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My deepest condolences to my brother's family who suffered a tragic death in search of a better life. Where is the humanity in the world. They did not deserve this. My heart is broken. Rest in peace Angels.
Posted by Tima Kurdi on Wednesday, 2 September 2015
Peter Bouckaert - Emergency Director at Human Rights Watch - was the first person to share the photographs of Aylan:
