Parents pray for missing teens not among the 53 found dead on a tractor trailer

Residents of the mountain village of San Marcos Atexskirapan in Mexico, holding a bead, stare at a picture of three people on the altar of a local church, with teenagers Jail, Jovani and Misael. I prayed that I was not among the 53 immigrants who died in. Texas suffocating trailer.

Waiting for confirmation was a pain for families from Mexico to Honduras. Now they want something that would have been horrifying before: capture by border guards, and even hospitalization, other than the solemn finality that has been fooled by families throughout the region.

Then at least they know. For now, parents reread the last message, swipe the photo, wait for the call and pray.

Dozens of black tarps came on Thursday, with each sister and her parents lined up, outside the neat two-story house of the Olivares, not far from the church. Covered people. Every day, I am with my teenage siblings Yovani and Jair Valencia Olivares' parents, and their cousin, the mother of 16-year-old Misael Olivares Monterde and her father.

Such coverings are paid to by family homes. But in this case, it's a vigilance where 3,000 townspeople come to raise the spirit of the family, pray and exchange stories about boys.

19-year-old Jair and 16-year-old Yovani's father, Teófilo Valencia, looked at their cell phones and read the last message they received. rice field. ..

"Dad, this time I'm going to San Antonio," Jovani wrote on Monday at 11:16 am. Thirty minutes later, his brother wrote to his father that they were working hard and ready to pay all the money.

A few hours later, there was a terrifying discovery of an abandonedsemi-trailer next to a railroad trackon the outskirts of a city in southern Texas.

My cousins ​​left together on June 21st. The brother's mother, Yolanda Olivares Lewis, put a certificate of Jovani's school in her purse as her identification and packed three outfits in her backpack. America and Mexico.

Hermelinda Monte de Jiménez spoke with her son Misael the night before her departure. "He said to me,'Mom, wake me up,' and he wouldn't go because I thought I wouldn't do it for a while," she said. "But that was his decision and his own dream."

Parents took out a loan using their house as collateral to cover their cousin's $ 10,000 smuggling fee. They planned to pay part in advance and pay the rest after the boy arrived safely.

Young people wanted to work, save money, and go back to open their own clothing and shoe store. They gave themselves four years.

By last Friday, June 24th, they were in Laredo, Texas.

They told their parents that after the weekend, they would be taken to the Austin destination where their cousin had been waiting for a trip just a few months ago. Last week, 20 residents left the town for the United States.

The family didn't hear about the unlucky trailer until Tuesday. They tried to contact the boys, but the message and phone didn't go through. They went to government agencies that same day and provided useful information for the search.

On Wednesday, the Mexican Consulate in San Antonio confirmed that the inhabitants of Veracruz, the Gulf where San Marcos is located, were among the 27 Mexican victims. On Thursday, state lawyers visited San Antonio to assist in identity verification.

Meanwhile, Olivares are waiting and praying.

The family wait for Jazzmin Nayaris Bueso Nunez in El Progreso, Honduras ended Thursday. Their prayers for her safe return could not be answered. She was confirmed to be among the dead in San Antonio.

Bueso Nunez suffers from the immune disorder lupus, her work at the assembly plant was expensive, and her treatment was very expensive, her family said.

A friend of her family wants to find a higher paid job to help her 15-year-old son, who she left with her parents, and find a cure for her. I offered to help with my trip to the United States. disease.

Before leaving her June 3rd, she said she was 37 years old and would move to her father.

"Dad, I've come to say goodbye," she said, José Santos Bueso told him on her last visit. "I'm going north."

He realized her danger and tried to talk about her. "No, dad, this is a special trip," she told him. "'I was there, her daughter', I tell her.'There is no special trip.'" Her only special trip was to fly with a visa. He told her.

"The smuggler earns $ 15,000. He says he'll take me without worry," she told him.

She was in Laredo the last time they spoke. She told him she wouldn't be able to communicate for a while because the smugglers intended to pick up their phone before proceeding.

On Thursday, a relative in the United States who helped her family provide identification to the authorities told them the sad truth, her brother Eric Hosue Rodriguez said. rice field.

"The economic and social conditions that exist in our country are very, very difficult," Rodriguez said. "That's why we see caravans and immigrants every day and every month, because people have dreams and don't have the opportunity." Yolanda walked from home to the church late Thursday with a picture of her son. They were surrounded by women with candles. In

, the mother was sitting in the first row while the monks were asking the gathered people to pray.

"It's not that they are criminals," he said. "They went looking for bread every day."

The townspeople prayed: I have a suffering heart.

In:
• Mexico
• Texas
• Smuggling