Drowned boys and mother are buried in Syria

Syrian woman and her two young sons who drowned on a desperate voyage from Turkey to Greece were buried Friday in their hometown of Kobani, returning to the conflict-torn Syrian Kurdish region they had fled.

With the burial of his family, Abdullah Kurdi abandoned any thought of leaving his homeland again.

"He only wanted to go to Europe for the sake of his children," said Suleiman Kurdi, an uncle of the grieving father. "Now that they're dead, he wants to stay here in Kobani next to them."

The haunting image of the 3-year-old Aylan Kurdi washed up on a Turkish beach focused the world's attention on the wave of migration fueled by war and deprivation.

The bodies of the mother and the two boys were flown to a city near Turkey's border with Syria, from where police-protected funeral vehicles made their way to the border town of Suruc and crossed into Kobani. Legislators from Turkey accompanied Abdullah Kurdi to Kobani. Journalists and well-wishers were stopped at a checkpoint some 3 kilometers (2 miles) from the border. (AP)

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