On the edge of the EU’s borders, Abdullah Kurdi, the father of the Syrian boy who was photographed lying lifeless on a Turkish beach after his family attempted to reach the Greek island of Kos, said he was preparing to take the bodies of his two sons and wife to be buried in his home town of Kobani.

Kurdi said he no longer had any desire to continue on his journey to Europe. Speaking outside the mortuary where the bodies of his two sons were being held, he said: “I just want to see my children for the last time and stay forever with them.”