This content was published on March 08, 2022 – 19:44
Ana Milena Male
Los Angeles, March 8 (EFE) .- The family of a Colombian who died last February after falling from the border wall between the United States and Mexico seeks to clarify the tragic event, which adds to a sad record that indicates that only in 2021 will They recorded more than 650 deceased migrants along this dividing line.
The body of Juan Carlos Rivera Cerón, 37, was found in a border area around 9 in the morning (local time) on February 24.
“Everything has been a nightmare. We haven’t been able to find out exactly what happened and why they left him alone,” said Jhon Escudero Cerón, the migrant’s brother, in a telephone conversation with Efe from Colombia.
“We are looking for a way to investigate what happened, to let us see the images from the security cameras,” he added.
Rivera was found by US Border Patrol officers, who called local authorities for help. The migrant was “in the middle of two border fences,” Lieutenant Marco Santana of the San Luis Police Department, Arizona, told Efe.
He added that although the emergency service went to the site, nothing could be done for the migrant, who was declared dead on the spot.
The man is believed to have suffered a severe blow to the head from a fall. “Apparently he was climbing the (second) fence and losing his balance he fell and hit himself,” Santana described.
“CHEATED” BY A COYOTE
His brother says that Rivera told them, on February 23, that he was near the border with a coyote and that his phone battery was about to die.
“Why did they leave him alone?” Escudero wonders, adding that the guide never told his brother about a wall he had to climb.
“My brother told us that they were going to leave him in a place where the border agents would find him and he could turn himself in” to start an asylum process, he said.
He added that his brother was supposedly traveling with other migrants, but he knows nothing about those people.
This uncertainty led Escudero and his family to ask the Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Office to allow them to observe the images of the cameras that monitor the border barrier to understand what happened.
Efe asked CBP for information about the case, but at the time of this publication they had not responded.
Last year saw a record of at least 650 migrants killed at the border, the deadliest since the International Organization for Migration (IOM) began keeping such records in 2014.
More than 200 deaths have occurred along the border in Arizona, according to the advocacy group Humane Borders and the Pima County Medical Examiner’s Office.
And not all deaths occur from accidents or the harsh desert conditions.
The CBP reported in late February that a Mexican immigrant was shot dead by one of its agents while trying to escape in a rugged area, about 50 kilometers northeast of Douglas, Arizona.
THE COLOMBIAN KNEW OF ANOTHER TRAGEDY
Rivera, father of three children aged 10, 6 and 3, left his home in Bogotá (Colombia) on February 21 for Cancún (Mexico), and then Mexicali, on the US border, where he met the coyote that was supposed to help him get through Arizona.
This sector of the border also dashed the hopes of Colombian Claudia Marcela Peña, 37, who died with her daughter, María José Sánchez, 10, on August 28.
Only the youngest son of the woman, Cristian Pinzón, 3 years old, was left alive from that journey, when they all tried to cross the desert, evading the border fence.
The three were going to meet Peña’s husband, who lives in Florida. Although the woman tried to ask for help by phone, she ran out of battery, which made it difficult for the rescue teams, who only found the infant alive.
Escudero assures that the family, including his brother, knew about the Peña tragedy, so they tried to prevent the migrant from crossing the desert. “They cheated on him,” he asserted.
Due to the family’s economic situation, no one was able to travel to the United States to claim Rivera’s body. Relatives are hoping to raise about $10,000, which an Arizona funeral home charges to do the paperwork and send the remains to Colombia.
They regret that the Colombian government has not helped them financially. Nor do they have anyone to claim the migrant’s personal belongings in San Luis (Arizona).
“It is very sad that (Rivera) had to die far from his family and his children. We do not want him to stay there; we have to bring him back to his home and we ask that you help us,” cried his brother. EFE
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