'We are very much afraid': Syrian couple describe terror before boarding smugglers' boat with their baby

With the hours ticking away until they board a smugglers’ boat that they hope will take them from a sandy beach on Turkey’s Aegean coastline to the Greek island of Kos, Rasha and her husband Kosay admit they are terrified.

They are well aware of this week’s tragedy, when a boat full of refugees overturned, drowning 12 people, including five-year-old Galip Kurdi and his three-year-old brother Aylan – whose image was imprinted on the world’s consciousness after a photo of his tiny, lifeless body was taken by a Turkish photographer at dawn the next day.

The drowning of the brothers has a particularly chilling resonance for the young couple, because they are travelling with an even smaller child – their five-month-old baby girl, Bana.

Sitting beneath a palm tree along the waterfront of the resort town of Bodrum, just a few miles from where Wednesday’s tragedy took place, the couple were biding their time until nightfall.

At 2am they expected to be collected by smugglers driving a van and taken to a beach opposite Kos, which lies just four miles across the water.

“We are very much afraid,” said Rasha, 28, who said the family lived in the eastern Syrian city of Deir Al-Zor until the war made life intolerable.

“They will take us to the beach in a closed van so that the police don’t see us. The boat is going to be very small and they put 40 people in it. We know it is very dangerous.”

They had bought life jackets for each other from a shop in Bodrum, and a tiny life-saving vest for baby Bana.

They had paid the smugglers $3,000 for the boat journey, they said.

“All the money we have, we have given to them. In Syria we sold our house, our car, everything,” said Rasha, tears welling up in her eyes. “We were happy before the war. We had no reason to leave. Now we are here, doing this.”

This small Syrian family are at the epicentre of a migration crisis that threatens to overwhelm Europe, undermine its principle of free movement and set nation against nation.

Around nine million Syrians have fled their homes since the outbreak of the conflict in March 2011.

Of those, around six million are internally displaced within Syria, while an estimated 1.8 million are living in Turkey, 1.2 million in Lebanon and 630,000 in Jordan.

Turkey has been praised for accepting such a large number of refugees, in a humanitarian operation that has cost around $6 billion, but the Syrians find themselves in limbo.

They are denied formal refugee status – instead Ankara categorises them as “guests”, granting them temporary refuge.

Jobs are in short supply, and Arabic- and Kurdish-speaking Syrians struggle with the Turkish language.

Many Syrians who have languished in refugee centres in Turkey for years say they see little or no prospect of peace returning to their country.

Hence the huge numbers seeking to leave Turkey and seek asylum in Europe – the Kurdi family were hoping to join relatives settled in Canada.

Those dreams now lie shattered, after Abdullah Kurdi buried his wife and two small children in their home town of Kobane in Syria on Friday – the very place they had been seeking to escape.

For months, the Turks have turned a blind eye to the exodus.

The beaches near Bodrum from where hundreds of dinghies have departed are by no means remote or unobserved – they sit right in front of luxury villa developments and next to marinas.

The few roads that lead to the beaches could easily be controlled by the Turkish authorities, had they chosen to do so.

In the wake of the outcry over Wednesday’s deaths and the tragically emblematic photograph of little Aylan, belated controls were enforced.

When The Telegraph visited the beach where Aylan and his brother and mother drowned, it was being patrolled by two police cars and police officers on motorbikes.

It was 4am and dark – the prime time for boats to leave – but there was no sign of refugees or smugglers.

The only sign of the sometimes perilous human trafficking trade was an abandoned life jacket, washed-up shoes and some water-logged rucksacks.

On Thursday night, Turkish authorities stopped three boats carrying 57 Syrians, Afghans and Pakistanis from crossing to Kos.

The coast guard impounded the vessels and the passengers were brought back to land.

Those with papers identifying where they came from will be deported – although not in the case of Syrians - whilst the rest will stay in Turkey, the coast guard said.

But this is one just one section of the Aegean coast from where refugees and migrants depart.

There are many others – bays and beaches that lie just a few miles from Greek islands such as Samos, Lesbos and Chios.

Tens of thousands of Syrians and other refugees and migrants are believed to be heading to the coast, ready to make the crossing to the islands.

In the past week, more than 5,000 migrants and refugees have crossed the Aegean to the Greek islands each day, according to the International Organisation for Migration. The largest group by nationality are the Syrians, followed by Afghans.

Humanitarian groups say the Turks are under no obligation to stem the tide of people who are genuine refugees – under international law, Syrians, Iraqis and Afghans have the right to seek safety in other countries.

“They could stop it, but I’m not sure they should,” said Daniel Esdras from the IOM.

“These are refugees looking for a safe place to get on with their lives. The international community should create a corridor to safety for these people, rather than force them to resort to smugglers and risk their lives. If that had happened before, the deaths of those small boys could have been avoided.”