Pictures of the boy on the border with Mexico asking for help
A video of a lost child becomes a symbol of the plight of immigrants to America
Grandmother and grandfather watching on TV the video of their lost grandson.
From the source
Peraza and her children at the border.
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Latin immigrants with their children at the US-Mexico border.
From the source
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A dramatic story, with the hero of the 10-year-old Nicaraguan child, Wilton, who was found crying on his face on the US-Mexico border in a Texas forest, crying, and begging for help from an American Border Police officer.
The video in which this boy appears has become a symbol of the immigration crisis facing all US administrations, most recently that of President Joe Biden, but the boy's story is part of a larger tragedy in Latin America, when Wilton and his mother, Melene Obregón, fled their home in Nicaragua to escape domestic violence.
The journey took them through the El Rama Mountains, on the southern Caribbean coast of Nicaragua, and ended with their abduction in northern Mexico, near the US border.
Grandma surprised by her grandson's kidnapping
In a remote farming community more than 3,000 kilometers from the US-Mexico border, in the El Rama mountains of Nicaragua, 66-year-old Socorro Leyva was horrified after seeing her grandson lost in tears, in a video broadcast. local TV. Until that time, Leva did not know that her daughter had left for the United States with her eldest child. “I was having dinner when my husband, who was sitting in front of the TV, yelled in surprise and asked me to come quickly, saying, 'Leva, come quickly!'" says the woman, who lives in an area known as El Paraíso. This is the son of Milene!” And the woman continues in her narration, “He was indeed my little grandson, he was carrying a small bag in his hand, and he was asking for help.” According to Leva, her daughter and grandson left the village to escape an abusive husband.
The two managed to reach US soil, but were returned directly to Mexico, under Regulation 42 of the United States Code, a public health regulation on which former President Donald Trump relied with the stated aim of curbing the spread of the coronavirus pandemic, which requires the border to be effectively closed to all The new asylum cases, but they fell into the hands of a criminal group, which held them for ransom.
ransom
Shortly thereafter, Melin's brother, Maisael Obregon, who lives in Miami, received the first call from the kidnappers.
They were asking him for $10,000 to release the mother and her baby, but he could only come up with $5,000, and it was agreed that Wilton would be released and taken across the border.
At the time, a US officer, who was on patrol in the area, found the baby on April 1.
In March alone, border patrols arrested more than 172,000 undocumented migrants, mostly from Central America, the highest monthly number recorded in the past 15 years.
However, most of these individuals were returned to Mexico, under Regulation 42 of the United States Code.
Joe Biden maintained this policy, but excluded unaccompanied minors.
All those who are returned, like Wilton and his mother, run the risk of being kidnapped by the criminal groups operating along the border.
Tragedy of a wife
The family's tragedy began in the village from which Mylene Obregón fled on February 8 with her eldest son, after seeing that she had no options to live a safe life in her village. Five days before embarking on the journey, she went to the Nicaraguan Public Prosecutor's Office, and filed a complaint against her ex-husband, Lazaro Gutierrez Laguna. "My daughter made everything clear in her statement to the attorney general, and said she didn't want Gutierrez to stalk her, harass her, plead with her or anything like that," says her mother, Leva. "The attorney general's office issued a summons to Gutierrez, but he did not turn up, and he continued to harass my daughter, who told me that she could no longer stay at home." "I felt like she was saying goodbye, but I didn't think it would be for that long," says Leva.
The grandmother says that Milene left a husband who was unfaithful to her, who kept insulting her, kicking her out of his house every day, and bragging about the presence of other women in his life.
"I'm not sure if he physically assaulted her, but this guy has no qualms about doing anything like that," she says.
She was returning to his home out of love for her two children, but she was no longer able to continue this 12-year relationship.
Before her daughter went to the attorney general's office, Grandma forced Gutierrez to sign a letter to an evangelical pastor and community leader pledging to stop offending Melin, but that had no effect.
"She is very afraid of this man," says the grandmother.
Mylene didn't tell her mother what she was going to do, but she trusted her brother Maysail who lives in Miami, who had helped pay for the trip to help his sister escape her miserable situation, unaware that she was heading straight to a different kind of hell in northern Mexico, and she is currently being held captive. In an unspecified location, according to her brother who spoke to her.
On the day the El Pais team visited Leva in El Paraíso, after a 300-kilometre journey from the country's capital, Managua, there was more bad news on TV.
The grandmother learned that her daughter was being held by a group of "human wolves", or people smugglers.
There is no electricity in El Paraiso, there is hardly any cell phone reception, and the only real connection to the outside world is through a small television, whose battery is powered by solar panels.
“Oh my God!” Leva cried when she heard the news.
"Only God can free her," she said with tears in her eyes.
"With such people, anything could happen to my daughter," she says in a shaky voice. "If there was a law here protecting women, my daughter might not have left."
In an interview with local media, Gutierrez said that his relationship with Melene ended "because of problems between us" and that they both agreed that she and her son would travel to the United States, but the grandmother denies what Gutierrez claims, and says the boy refused to stay with his father when the latter tried to keep him. By force, a few days before the trip, the second child resided with him in Nicaragua.
government promise
Meanwhile, the Vice President of Nicaragua, Rosario Murillo, took the issue seriously, saying that Melene had left "due to domestic problems", although she did not specifically mention the societal persecution of the woman in her country, which caused the loss of 19 A woman's life so far this year, according to the nonprofit group Catholics for the Right to Decide.
Murillo also said the government is working to return the 10-year-old, who is currently staying at an unaccompanied minors' home in Brownsville, Texas.
False American dream
Misleading news reports in Latin American countries that US President Joe Biden will now welcome parents with young children have encouraged massive waves of immigrants to stream across the US-Mexico border, but that "false American" dream is shattered once the migrants reach the border.
Velma Iris Peraza, 28, arrived exhausted, thin and with a severe cough. She could barely walk, and soon collapsed on the bridge between the United States and Mexico, holding the hand of her three-year-old daughter, Adriana. The little girl was as exhausted as her mother, vomiting on the boots of the border guards who were standing near the sign of the border between Mexico and the United States. "They deceived us!" exclaims Piraza. They deceived us!” She adds, “They told us that they would take us to a shelter in the northern United States, and they never told us that it was impossible, and that we would be deported.”
Peraza started her journey two weeks ago from Honduras. She saw in the news that the Biden administration would now allow women with children under the age of six to enter, obtain documents, live and work in the United States, and thought her chance had come. With the help of a bolero (a human smuggler), Guatemala crossed into the state of Tabasco in Mexico and made its way to Reynosa, a town in the border state of Tamaulipas. America is now just 15 minutes away by car.
In Reynosa, she waited with other migrants from Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador to cross the border at the point the smuggler had told her.
She spent a few hours at liberty in the United States, before she was arrested in McAllen, Texas.
The immigrant detention center was so cold that they named it La Helera (ice box), and she and her children spent four days there, before being flown to El Paso, Texas, 1,200 kilometers from where they were being held.
On the bridge to Mexico, immigrants were asked to walk in a straight line without stopping until they left US soil.
The suffering of women doubled during the closure
The surge in violence against girls and women during the COVID-19 lockdown in Latin America and the Caribbean threatens to turn into a catastrophe.
Latin America already has the highest rates of gender-based violence in the world, with Brazil, Mexico, Argentina, Peru, El Salvador, and Bolivia accounting for 81% of global cases.
In Colombia, domestic violence during lockdown increased by 175%, compared to the same period last year.
In Mexico, domestic violence calls to helplines rose 60% in the first weeks of the lockdown.
In the Dominican Republic, the Department for Combating Violence of the Ministry of Women's Affairs received 619 calls during the first 25 days of quarantine.
“Something that really worries me is violence against women and girls,” says Miriam, 18, from Guatemala. “It is sad and painful to hear that there is so much violence against girls and women, it is a disease that is more harmful than the virus itself."
"In remote communities, girls and women can't reach the phones to ask for help," says Samia, 21, from Ecuador.
Bathsheba, 15, from Peru, says: "There are many girls who are subjected to physical and psychological abuse, and this information is overshadowed by the epidemic, and the official authorities only talk about (Covid-19), and they do not talk about cases of violence."
Translation: ■ AK on «Relief Web»
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