Survivor claims: 'father of dead toddler Alan Kurdi is a ‘people smuggler’.

Survivor claims: 'father of dead toddler Alan Kurdi is a ‘people smuggler’. (TheAustralian).

A woman on the same boat as Alan Kurdi says the boy’s father is a people smuggler who begged her not to dob him in.

Zainab Abbas said Abdullah Kurdi had lied to the world after the image of his dead three-year-old son on a Turkish beach sparked a global outpouring of support for Syrian refugees.

“Yes, it was Abdullah Kurdi driving the boat,” Ms Abbas told Network Ten through her cousin Lara Tahseen today.

Ms Abbas also lost two children when the boat capsized shortly after leaving Bodrum for the Greek islands.

After the tragedy, Mr Kurdi told the media he took over steering the boat after the captain panicked and jumped ship.

But Ms Abbas said Mr Kurdi was the driver of the boat, and the man she paid to book her passage told her it would be safe because the driver was taking his wife and two children.

“When I lost my kids, I lost my life, how can he lie to the media?” her cousin Ms Tahseen said, translating for Ms Abbas.

“He said, ‘Please don’t dob me in.’ That was in the water.”

Ms Abbas said Mr Kurdi was speeding in the overcrowded boat, which did not have enough life jackets.

She said her husband told him to be careful just before the boat capsized, reportedly killing at least 12 people.

Ms Abbas is now in Iraq and her family has called on the federal government to include them in the 12,000 refugees Australia has pledged to take in.Read the full story here. More here from the National Post.

UN calls on EU to admit up to 200,000 refugees.

UN calls on EU to Flood admit up to 200,000 refugees.(DW).

The United Nations (UN) High Commissioner for Refugees has called for up to 200,000 refugees to be shared across the European Union. Various meetings are due to be held across the EU to discuss the crisis.

Antonio Guterres, UN High Commissioner for Refugees, said on Friday that EU member states would be bound to the "mass relocation program." "People who are found to have a valid protection claim ... must then benefit from a mass relocation program, with the mandatory participation of all EU member states," Guterres said in a statement.

"No country can do it alone, and no country can refuse to do its part," he declared.

A European source told AFP news agency that European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker would next week unveil a plan for the relocation of at least 120,000 more refugees. Push for EU solidarity

Guterres' call on Friday followed similar demands from Germany and France for a binding EU quota on the number of refugees taken in by each member state.

"So many refugees are arriving at our external borders that we can't leave Italy or Greece alone to deal with the task," German Chancellor Angela Merkel said. "Neither can it be that three countries, like Sweden, Austria and Germany, are left alone with the lion's share of the task," she added.

Poland warned on Friday that the EU must tackle the causes behind the huge migrant influx or risk being inundated with millions of refugees. "The scale of the migration is enormous, so we can't focus - I'm talking about the whole of Europe - on allocating illegal migrants without fighting the causes [of their arrival]," Schetyna told private Radio Zet.

"We have to think of how to stop the illegal migration. Otherwise [we may have] soon have 3-4 million economic refugees," he added. Hmmmm.....If or when the UN Food program starts cutting aid to the refugees the real 'Reconquista' of Europe will begin in earnest.Read the full story here.

Melilla Spain: Muslims Mock Virgin Mary and Start Fight During Holy Week Procession.

 Source and More Pictures of the procession here.

Melilla Spain: Muslims Mock Virgin Mary and Start Fight During Holy Week Procession.(IVE).

The solemnity and devotion of the night of Good Friday was tarnished in Melilla by a fight which provoked scenes of panic between penitents of the Virgin de la Soledad [Our Lady of Solitude] and the public who were watching this procession, one of the most popular during Holy Week in the autonomous city. 

According to the official version of events, reflected in the statement of the National Police, the public disorder started with mocking and contemptuous comments made by four young Muslims who were dining in the terrace of a bar in the centre of Melilla and, it seems, were the worse for wear due to the consumption of alcohol. The four have been arrested and a family has now filed a complaint against them, which the Agrupación de Cofradías de Melilla [Association of (Holy Week) Fraternities of Melilla] is considering joining.

It all started at around quarter past eleven in the night, when the Solitude procession passed in front of the bar, whose terrace is located in a small street a few metres from the synagogue Or Zaruah. The young men made some contemptuous comment about the Virgin, an attitude which was rebuked by a family that was close to them and able to hear the insults directed at the religious image. But far from retracting them, those have now been detained continued with their mockery. It was then that a fight started, lighting the fuse of general disorder.

According to the testimony of people who were present, the dispute even involved glasses, plates and bar furniture being thrown. The noise that the impact of these objects provoked, added to the shouts of the tumult, reached the procession, which traditionally moves through the centre of Melilla in silence and darkness because of the grief of Good Friday.

It was then that many of those who were there, not knowing what was happening, started to run to escape the tumult. The stampede of penitents and members of the public also caused moments of fear for the little nazarenos [people wearing the hooded garments] of the Solitude, who were "crying disconsolately" looking for their parents, according to one of the officials of the Cofradía de la Soledad [Fraternity of Solitude].

...Incidents of this type are not common in Melilla, a city marked by respect between the religious faiths that form its society... The interculturalism of Melilla even makes possible the fact that on Holy Thursday el Cautivo [procession of an emblem of Jesus in chains during which prisoners are pardoned] liberated more Muslim than Christian prisoners.Hmmmm......"Interfaith dialog 101"Read the full story here.