Brussels, September 4 (RHC)-- The father of a drowned Syrian toddler whose heartbreaking images of his lifeless body -- in a t-shirt, shorts and shoes -- on a Turkish beach shocked the world, returned to his home in the Syrian border town of Kobani on Friday to bury his three-year-old son, Aylan Kurdi.

Abdullah Kurdi said his family of four were trying to get to Canada when their boat sank in the Aegean Sea and his two sons Aylan and Ghaleb "slipped through my hands."

International criticism has arisen following European leaders' inaction toward the refugee crisis. UN High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres warned that the EU faced a "defining moment" after little Aylan's death and called for the mandatory resettlement of 200,000 refugees by EU states.

With tensions growing, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Francois Hollande said Thursday they had agreed that the EU should now require member states to take in a fixed number of migrants.

EU foreign ministers were to meet later on Friday in Luxembourg to discuss the crisis, which has split the bloc between countries like Germany, advocating greater solidarity, and mainly eastern nations such as Hungary that have taken a hardline approach by erecting a fence on the border with Serbia to keep out migrants.