- Title: Relatives of Guatemalan migrants involved in deadly crash beg for 'support'
- Date: 12th December 2021
- Summary: (SOUNDBITE) (Quiche Maya) DOMINGO TINIGUAR, MOTHER OF INJURED MIGRANT, ELIAS SALVADOR, SAYING: ''At the moment I don't know anything about my son. I was sent a photo of the hospital but I don't know if he is dead, hurt, or in serious condition."
- Embargoed: 26th December 2021 18:19
- Keywords: Guatemala family members loved ones migration truck accidents
- Location: PAMEZABAL TOWN, SOLOLA / XEPOL TOWN, QUICHE, GUATEMALA
- City: PAMEZABAL TOWN, SOLOLA / XEPOL TOWN, QUICHE, GUATEMALA
- Country: Guatemala
- Topics: Asylum/Immigration/Refugees,South America / Central America,Government/Politics
- Reuters ID: LVA009F7QEUKN
- Aspect Ratio: 16:9
- Story Text: Family members of Guatemalan migrants involved in a deadly truck accident in Mexico, desperate for news of their loved ones, begged for support from Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador.
When Celso Escun Pacheco, 34, left his home in the Guatemalan highlands last week, he kissed his wife and two young daughters goodbye and son, before setting out for the dangerous journey to the United States, where he hoped to find a well-paying job.
His journey was cut short two days later as he was among the dozens injured when a truck trailer carrying more than 160 people overturned on a curve outside the city of Tuxtla Gutierrez in Mexico's Chiapas state on Thursday. At least 55 migrants, most from Guatemala were killed, one of the worst death tolls of migrants in Mexico in the past decade.
Escun, a farmworker who earned about $7 a day, escaped with his life, his wife, Lucrecia Alba, told Reuters.
At the family's modest home, made of wood and sheet metal, in Pamezabal, a tiny village in Santa Lucia Utatlan, a municipality of Guatemala's province of Solola, Alba said the amount of deadly incidents involving migrants made the family feel left behind by state authorities.
The incident has put a spotlight on the dangers migrants face on the road to the U.S. border, often at the hands of human traffickers known as coyotes. Dozens of migrants have died from violence or accidents in Mexico over the past decade.
The accident underscores the extreme conditions, including severe poverty and gang violence, that migrants from Central American countries flee.
Dominga Tiniguar, who lives in an impoverished village called Xepol in Guatemala's Quiche province, has spent days in anguish, awaiting news of her son, a farmworker who planned to earn money in the United States before returning to Guatemala. She has had no news about her son Elias Salvador Mateo Tiniguar.
Elias had paid a coyote $3,800 and set out for the U.S. border, Tiniguar said.
Tiniguar said the family saw a photo from the truck accident and recognized Elias laying on the ground from the blue shirt he was wearing - but they still do not know if he is dead or alive.
Guatemala has not yet publicly identified the 55 people who were killed.
Following the accident, Guatemalan officials urged the United States to invest in the region to boost development. Mexico and Guatemala both pledged to crack down on international people-smuggling networks they blamed for Thursday's accident.
(Production: Luis Echeverria, Manuel Carrillo, Geraldine Downer) - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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