Berlin Police Investigate Man For Hateful Facebook Post About Drowned Syrian Boy

"We do not mourn him, but celebrate [his death]!" the man is suspected of writing.

Aylan and Galip Kurdi.

German police on Saturday searched the Berlin apartment of a man suspected of writing a hateful post on Facebook in response to photos of drowned Syrian infants that have refocused global attention on the refugee crisis.

After their boat sank while trying to cross the Mediterranean for European shores, photos of the bodies of 3-year-old Aylan and 4-year-old Galip Kurdi lying motionless on a Turkish beach were widely shared online and in newspapers last week.

However, police said in a statement that a 26-year-old Berlin man is suspected of writing "We do not mourn him, but celebrate [his death]!" on Facebook.

German newspaper Die Welt reported the post was made in the Facebook group "Berlin wehrt sich" or "Berlin defends itself," a right-wing page that routinely shares anti-immigrant stories.

Authorities on Saturday searched the man's apartment, seizing a computer and two mobile phones as evidence for possible charges of racial incitement and defaming the memory of the dead.

The "Berlin Defends Itself" page has been flooded with comments accusing the page creator of racism and Nazism. "If it looks like a Nazi, smells like a Nazi, and babbles like a Nazi, it's a Nazi," one commenter wrote.

Meanwhile, the father of the dead boys, Abdullah Kurdi, has returned to his home in Kobani, after burying his children there on Friday.

In addition to his two sons, Kurdi buried his wife, who also died in the sinking.

“I just want to see my children for the last time and stay forever with them," he told the Associated Press.

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