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Amid tears and religious songs, this Sunday the relatives of the Guatemalan migrants who died in the traffic accident in Txula Gutiérrez, in southern Mexico, gave the last goodbye to their loved ones. Following demands from various human rights groups and activists, regional authorities promised to invest more resources to curb human trafficking.
A mourning without borders. This weekend the first four bodies of Guatemalans who lost their lives in a tragic traffic accident arrived in Guatemala City on the outskirts of the city of Tuxtla Gutiérrez, in the Mexican state of Chiapas, ten days ago.
Daniel Pérez, 41, was part of a group of 160 migrants who were traveling in a truck bound for the United States that overturned on a curve in Tuxtla. At least 55 people died, including Pérez, who, being unemployed by the pandemic in his native Guatemala, decided to risk his life to cross the border.
Pérez’s relatives received his remains this Sunday in El Tejar, about 50 kilometers west of the Guatemalan capital, where he was originally from. Her partner, Mariela Olivares, 35, went through an odyssey to find her husband. He traveled to Mexico after hearing the painful news.
“I looked for him in five hospitals and tragically I found him in the morgue,” Olivares said, adding that her husband was trying to get to the United States for the first time.
The accident, one of the worst in the last decade, highlighted the great dangers that migrants face on their way to the United States.
Many of them are kidnapped by the criminal gangs that operate in Mexico to demand ransom for their relatives, or are victims of violence; while others are abandoned by traffickers who promise to take them to the United States. Dozens of migrant people have died from traffic accidents, such as the one that occurred on December 9 in southern Mexico.
Pérez’s emotional farewell was from the San Sebastián parish, in El Tejar, Chimaltenango, Guatemala. There, his relatives mourned his loss and recalled that the man was trying to get to the United States to get a job and pay the mortgage on his house. He had two girls, ages 18 and 10, and a boy, 13.
Many families are still trying to identify their victims.
The government commission in charge of assisting migrants has received about 150 requests from families across the country seeking information about their loved ones.
“Many of them emigrated in the days before the disaster,” said Raúl Berrios, secretary general of the National Council of Migrants of Guatemala.
The other bodies, repatriated to the Central American country this weekend, were between 27 and 41 years old, according to the Guatemalan Ministry of Foreign Relations.
On Friday, the Guatemalan government asked the United States to invest resources in Central America to prevent migration, as well as to join efforts to contain human trafficking. The Guatemalan and Mexican authorities have already promised on other occasions to fight international human trafficking networks, which they blamed for the accident.
Marcelo Ebrard, Secretary of Foreign Relations of Mexico, announced the creation of a regional “action group” to fight against smuggling networks. The group will coordinate efforts from the United States, Ecuador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico and Nicaragua.
According to Ebrad, this group “will investigate, identify, meet and bring to justice the leaders of the organization responsible for this human tragedy.”
“We invite the Government of the United States to support development and investment in our country, as well as in neighboring countries, to avoid and ensure that these tragedies are not repeated,” defended Pedro Brolo, Guatemalan Foreign Minister.
Both Ebrad and Brolo proposed holding an urgent meeting between Guatemala, Mexico and the United States, to align and standardize their immigration policies, but it has not yet happened.
Migration experts and humanitarian organizations estimate that each year some 500,000 Guatemalans, Hondurans and Salvadorans try to emigrate irregularly to the United States in search of better living conditions.
With EFE and Reuters
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