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Images of the tiny body of three-year old Aylan Kurdi washed up on a beach near the Turkish resort of Bodrum sparked a global outpouring of sympathy and outrage.

Aylan is believed to be one of at least 12 people who died trying to reach Greece when their boats sank in Turkish waters. 

His father, the only survivor of the family of four, said his children "slipped through my hands" as their boat was taking in water en route to Greece.

"I was holding my wife's hand. But my children slipped through my hands," Abdullah Kurdi said.

"We tried to cling to the boat, but it was deflating. It was dark and everyone was screaming," Kurdi said speaking about the sinking that also killed his wife Rihan and five-year-old son Ghaleb.

Abdullah returned to his hometown Kobane on Friday, a city in the Aleppo Governorate in northern Syria, lying immediately south of the border with Turkey, to bury Aylan, Ghaleb and Rihan.

"I don't blame anyone else for this. I just blame myself," Abdullah told the mourners.

"I will have to pay the price for this the rest of my life," the devastated father said.

The family was displaced several times inside Syria and had returned to Kobane in June but IS fighters re-entered the town holding hostages in several buildings in a two-day stand-off that left more than 200 civilians dead.

The family then decided to try to reach Europe from Turkey.

Artists around the world have paid tribute to the toddler by re-creating their own versions of the heart-breaking image, with many using social media to share these almost unbearably powerful depictions under the Turkish hashtag , or .