Ciudad Juarez.– The search and tracking work on a dam located between Via Natura Street and Paseo de la Victoria continued yesterday Saturday by the Fire Department to locate the teenager (who is presumed to be Rafael Antonio Rodríguez Ibarra) swept away by the storm current on Tapioca Street on Friday night.
The search was suspended on Friday at around 11:00 p.m. due to insufficient light, and resumed at 7:00 a.m. on Saturday.
The Heroic Fire Department arrived with three boats and various long tools to find the end of the absorption well and identify foreign bodies.
The body of the minor was allegedly dragged along Tapioca Street after the intersection with Candelilla, until crossing Paseo de la Victoria and entering the Mahle maquiladora premises.
Sergio Rodríguez, general director of municipal Civil Protection, explained that on Friday at around 8:30 p.m. they were informed that two teenagers had been swept away by the natural waterways that flow into the Tapioca, and upon arrival it was learned that one of them had already been saved.
The other one continued in the flow of water. “We are not sure if he fell into this dam, but it is our protocol to look for the body,” said the local official.
However, he said that considering the starting point, “everything leads us to this place,” the absorption well on a fenced plot of land with access controlled by residents of the Gardeno Residencial subdivisions, who opened it in response to the emergency.
The missing minor tried to cross the street, lost his balance, fell and was dragged by all the tapioca from south to north, passed by the Mahle factory and there he could have entered through “some grid traps that are in the factory, which are there to absorb the water so that it does not harm them, but because of the capacity of the water and that they became silted (filled with garbage that impeded the flow) they removed the traps so that the water would flow.”
This made it possible for large bodies to enter a channel that faces the dam, measuring 4×4 metres, with columns that the minor could also have hit.
During the search, firefighters also found a 50×50 centimeter tunnel, but it was dry and not in use by the factory, and after an inspection it was ruled out that there was anyone there.
If the water had been sufficiently filled, Rodríguez said, the body of water would have continued to flow into drain 2A, but no flow was observed.
Rodríguez went into more detail. He said that they would first look for a “first filter” where these waters flow into the lake, an area of about seven or eight meters by 20 meters, approximately two meters deep.
Going to the second part of the absorption well would be more difficult. It is a body of water about 100 by 150 meters with depths of up to seven or eight meters, which made the search difficult.
By 2:00 pm yesterday, no body had been found. Only a cell phone, but it was ruled out that it belonged to Rafael. Hours later, the boy’s backpack was located in the dam.
Rafael is a charismatic, home-grown boy
Rafael Antonio Rodríguez Ibarra, a 16-year-old teenager who is in his third semester at Conalep Campus II in the Ampliación Aeropuerto neighborhood, is described as a charismatic, cheerful, courageous and “smart-alecky” teenager. He is identified as the minor who disappeared in the stormwater current recorded last Friday night.
Rafael was heading home after finishing his afternoon classes, because his family (made up of an aunt, grandmother and cousin) had been late in picking him up, given the rains that had already formed channels and puddles in several parts of the city.
A student from Colegio de Bachilleres 7 posted on Instagram that she was present when Rafael was last seen.
“We didn’t know the boy we were with (Rafael). He asked me if he could cross with us, he took me by the hand and he saved me every time I fell. He never let me be carried away (by the current) until he fell and begged me to let him go.
He promised me that he would be fine, and the last thing he did was smile at me. I will never forget that beautiful, last smile. He saved me and I couldn’t do anything for him.
“We weren’t playing. Do you think we wanted to put our lives at risk like that?” read the story that was posted, deleted shortly before 12:00 noon on Saturday. In one of the videos published of the incident, where someone presumed to be Rafael is seen hitting a pickup truck with the force of the current that drags him along, it was recorded from the perspective of teenagers aboard a vehicle (it was noticeable that they were filming with a glass in front, in motion and sheltered from the rain), who were laughing at the scene. This is what the student sought to clarify, that “we weren’t playing; we were trying to get back home.”
Rafael’s family has been looking for him since Friday night. Based on the images in that video and the fact that they have not heard anything from him, they suspect that he is the minor who was swept away by the current.
And they are suspicious because, according to his cousin, who asked to remain anonymous due to the extortion attempts they have suffered since making his search public, Rafael was a homely, communicative teenager. “He didn’t go anywhere else. He went from home to school and vice versa. He asked permission when he wanted to go out. We never lacked contact with him,” she said.
“We thought that maybe there was someone with a good heart who could tell us that he was at home or that he was taken to a hospital, but no,” they used the published telephone numbers to try to take advantage of their concern.
Rafael was wearing light grey trousers and a white polo shirt, as well as a thin silver chain, a grey backpack and black school shoes.
For any information regarding his whereabouts, please contact the authorities at 911.
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