Teh One Who Knocks
06-27-2019, 11:59 AM
Richard Hartley-Parkinson for Metro.co.uk
https://i.imgur.com/KnntpVb.jpg
Oscar Alberto Martinez Ramirez wanted a better life for his toddler daughter Valeria – but instead they will be remembered for dying as they tried to cross the Rio Grande.
A devastating picture has emerged of them lying dead on the banks of the river after they desperately tried to get into the US.
He tucked his 23-month-old daughter into his t-shirt and her arms are draped around his neck as she clung to him in her final moments.
Ramirez, from El Salvador, had become frustrated at being unable to present himself to US authorities to request asylum.
So on Sunday he decided to try and swim across the river with his daughter. He made it across and left his daughter on the bank of the river before heading back to get his wife Tania Vanessa Avalos.
https://i.imgur.com/VLAJnY8.jpg
But as he swam away Valeria became frightened and threw herself into the water.
He went back and managed to grab Valeria, but they were swept away by the current.
His mother Rosa Ramirez said: ‘Ramirez said: ‘When the girl jumped in is when he tried to reach her, but when he tried to grab the girl, he went in further … and he couldn’t get out.
‘He put her in his shirt, and I imagine he told himself, “I’ve come this far” and decided to go with her.’
A search had been launched for Martinez and Valeria but was suspended on Sunday as night fell.
Their bodies were discovered near Matamoros, Mexico, across from Brownsville, Texas, several hundred yards from where they had tried to cross and just half a mile from an international bridge.
Rosa Ramirez said her son, daughter-in-law and granddaughter left El Salvador on April 3, spending two months in a shelter in Tapachula, near Mexico’s border with Guatemala.
https://i.imgur.com/ZmlXnHg.jpg
She said: ‘I begged them not to go, but he wanted to scrape together money to build a home.
They hoped to be there a few years and save up for the house.’
Their bodies are expected to be returned to El Salvador tomorrow and the family is being assisted by El Salvador’s foreign ministry.
Mexican President Andrews Manuel Lopez said: ‘Very regrettable that this would happen.
We have always denounced that as there is more rejection in the United States, there are people who lose their lives in the desert or crossing the river’.
Immigration specialist Maureen Meyer said: ‘It’s a horrifying image. And I think it speaks so clearly to the real risks of these U.S. programs that are either returning people back to Mexico seeking asylum or in this case limiting how many people can enter the U.S. every day.’
Last year there were 283 deaths along the 2,000-mile US-Mexico border.
On Sunday two babies, a toddler and a woman were found dead as a result of the overwhelming heat.
In April three children and an adult from Hondruas died when their raft capsized. Earlier this month, a six-year-old from India died in Arizona.
https://i.imgur.com/KnntpVb.jpg
Oscar Alberto Martinez Ramirez wanted a better life for his toddler daughter Valeria – but instead they will be remembered for dying as they tried to cross the Rio Grande.
A devastating picture has emerged of them lying dead on the banks of the river after they desperately tried to get into the US.
He tucked his 23-month-old daughter into his t-shirt and her arms are draped around his neck as she clung to him in her final moments.
Ramirez, from El Salvador, had become frustrated at being unable to present himself to US authorities to request asylum.
So on Sunday he decided to try and swim across the river with his daughter. He made it across and left his daughter on the bank of the river before heading back to get his wife Tania Vanessa Avalos.
https://i.imgur.com/VLAJnY8.jpg
But as he swam away Valeria became frightened and threw herself into the water.
He went back and managed to grab Valeria, but they were swept away by the current.
His mother Rosa Ramirez said: ‘Ramirez said: ‘When the girl jumped in is when he tried to reach her, but when he tried to grab the girl, he went in further … and he couldn’t get out.
‘He put her in his shirt, and I imagine he told himself, “I’ve come this far” and decided to go with her.’
A search had been launched for Martinez and Valeria but was suspended on Sunday as night fell.
Their bodies were discovered near Matamoros, Mexico, across from Brownsville, Texas, several hundred yards from where they had tried to cross and just half a mile from an international bridge.
Rosa Ramirez said her son, daughter-in-law and granddaughter left El Salvador on April 3, spending two months in a shelter in Tapachula, near Mexico’s border with Guatemala.
https://i.imgur.com/ZmlXnHg.jpg
She said: ‘I begged them not to go, but he wanted to scrape together money to build a home.
They hoped to be there a few years and save up for the house.’
Their bodies are expected to be returned to El Salvador tomorrow and the family is being assisted by El Salvador’s foreign ministry.
Mexican President Andrews Manuel Lopez said: ‘Very regrettable that this would happen.
We have always denounced that as there is more rejection in the United States, there are people who lose their lives in the desert or crossing the river’.
Immigration specialist Maureen Meyer said: ‘It’s a horrifying image. And I think it speaks so clearly to the real risks of these U.S. programs that are either returning people back to Mexico seeking asylum or in this case limiting how many people can enter the U.S. every day.’
Last year there were 283 deaths along the 2,000-mile US-Mexico border.
On Sunday two babies, a toddler and a woman were found dead as a result of the overwhelming heat.
In April three children and an adult from Hondruas died when their raft capsized. Earlier this month, a six-year-old from India died in Arizona.