The aunt of two drowned Syrian boys recalled her brother’s harrowing battle to save his sons at two emotional press conferences in Coquitlam, B.C. Thursday, and said the tragedy would help wake people up and pay attention to the migrant crisis.

“Now the whole world is going to watch my story. Where was all the world before when my kids were hungry? When I didn’t have a job?” said Tima Kurdi.

“I want to tell the rest of the world, at this point, to step in and help the refugees.”

Kurdi said her brother Abdullah described to her the horror of the boys dying in his arms and screamed: “Please don’t die!” at their lifeless bodies.

“He said he tried with all his power,” she said.

When Abdullah realized that his five-year-old son Ghalib was dead in his left arm, he turned his attention to his three-year-old son, Alan, she said.

“Slowly he let him (Ghalib) go and he said I will try to save the second one, Alan,” he said.

When he realized Alan was also dead, he tried to save his wife, also with no success, she said.

“He said, ‘I tried with all my power to save them, I didn’t,’” she said.

A photograph of Alan’s tiny body in a bright red T-shirt and shorts, face-down in the surf, appeared in newspapers around the world, prompting sympathy and outrage at the perceived inaction of developed nations in helping refugees.

Alan’s 5-year-old brother Ghalib and mother Rehan, 35, were among 12 people, including other children, who died after two boats capsized while trying to reach the Greek island of Kos.

“The things that happened to us here, in the country where we took refuge to escape war in our homeland, we want the whole world to see this,” Abdullah told reporters.

Kurdi addressed the press twice Thursday, in order to clarify her family’s plight seeking asylum in Canada.

She had applied for refugee status in Canada for her brother Mohammad, and planned to apply for Abdullah next. But when Mohamad’s application was denied, she knew there was no hope bringing Abdullah here.

Kurdi said she started Mohammad's application first because his children were older and needed to be in school.

“It was really bad to tell them this... ‘I’m sorry I can’t bring you here,’” she said.

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Mohammad settled in Germany, and Abdullah wanted to follow with his own family. But Abdullah’s wife was scared of the perilous journey across the water to Greece, Kurdi said.

“She said to me I really don’t want to go, I don’t know how to swim,” Kurdi said. “I said ‘just put your life jacket on, you’ll be fine.’”

Kurdi said she did all she could to help her brothers and their families, including wiring them $5,000 to help pay the smuggler for their escape.

“I shouldn’t have sent the money,” she cried.

Kurdi said she moved to Canada in 1992 after marrying a Canadian and worked to bring family members to Canada and safety.

Asked what should be done to prevent future tragedies, she said: “Stop the war.”

She said Abdullah now wants to travel to their hometown of Kobani in Syria near the Turkish border to bury his boys.

“He has to burry them in their own country,” she said.

He also wants to put bananas on their graves, as it was their favorite treat, she said.

Kurdi praised NDP MP Fin Donnelly for trying to help and delivering a plea for assistance to Conservative immigration minister Chris Alexander.

“And no response,” she said.

Abdullah told reporters after identifying his sons’ bodies that Canadian officials had offered him citizenship after seeing what had happened but that he declined. The Canadian government denies offering him citizenship.

Kurdi said she has not heard of anyone being offered citizenship, but wishers her family could be reunited in Canada.

“But this is the law and you have to follow it,” she said.

The Kurdi family had made a privately-sponsored refugee application to the Canadian authorities that was rejected in June due to complications with applications from Turkey.

Kurdi said the family had money and plenty of room to house little Alan Kurdi and his brother and parents.

“I wasn't asking the Canadian government to drain the system, I can pay for everything,” she said.

Turkey has won international praise for taking in two million refugees since the Syrian civil war began in March 2011, spending $6 billion caring for them and receiving just $400 million in outside aid.

But it has warned it is reaching capacity, and thousands are now making the perilous journey by boat from Turkey to Greece in a bid to enter Europe.

“European countries, which have turned the Mediterranean, the cradle of the world’s oldest civilizations, into a cemetery for refugees, shares the sin for every refugee who loses their life,” Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said.

Security officials in Mugla said the bodies of Abdullah’s two sons and wife would be flown via Istanbul to the southeastern city of Sanliurfa, from where they would be taken by road to the Syrian border town of Kobani.

Kobani, the family’s hometown, has been the scene of intense fighting over the last year. In recent months Kurdish regional forces have been trying to repel attempts by Islamic State to recapture the town.

With files from Ben Spurr, The Canadian Press, Reuters, The Guardian