New Delhi, June 26: A heart-wrenching photo of a drowned father and his toddler lying face down in water after they were unable to get to the United States has once again highlighted the life-threatening risks taken by refugees to reach safer shores.
The photo of the Salvadoran father and his daughter, tucked inside her father’s shirt with her arm still around him, lying lifeless in the water of the Rio Grande, part of the US border with Mexico is being widely shared on social media.
Being dubbed as the Aylan Kurdi moment of America, the photo of Oscar Alberto Martinez Ramirez and his daughter Valeria was published by a Mexican newspaper after the bodies of the two were found on Monday. Valeria’s arm was still wrapped around her father as his black shirt was hiked up to his chest.
According to the newspaper, Ramirez was frustrated because the family from El Salvador was unable to present themselves to US authorities and request asylum.
He swam across the river on Sunday with his daughter Valeria.
After he set her on the river bank and started back for his wife, the toddler threw herself into the waters. Ramirez was able to grab Valeria, but the current swept them both away.
“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,” Rosa Ramirez, Martinez’s mother, told AP. “He put her in his shirt, and I imagine he told himself, ‘I’ve come this far’ and decided to go with her.”
“I begged them not to go, but he wanted to scrape together money to build a home,” Ramirez said. “They hoped to be there a few years and save up for the house.”
From the Sonoran Desert to the Rio Grande, the 2,000-mile US-Mexico border has long been an at times deadly crossing between ports of entry. A total of 283 migrant deaths were recorded last year.
Ramirez said her son and his family left El Salvador on April 3 and spent about two months at a shelter in Tapachula, near Mexico’s border with Guatemala. El Salvador’s foreign ministry said it was working to assist the family including Ávalos, who was at a border migrant shelter following the drownings. The bodies were expected to be flown to El Salvador on Thursday.
Very regrettable that this would happen, Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said Tuesday in response to a question about the photograph. 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. There was no immediate comment from the White House, AP said.
In recent weeks alone, two babies, a toddler, and a woman were found dead, overcome by the sweltering heat. Three children and an adult from Honduras died in April after their raft capsized on the Rio Grande, and a six-year-old Indian girl was found dead earlier this month in Arizona, where temperatures routinely soar well above 100 degrees Fahrenheit.
(With AP inputs)
