Articles and related content for the multimedia special.
The case of Marcela Pineda is a reflection of those who die trying to migrate to the US.By: Aura Saavedra Álvarez and David López Bermúdez.
El TiempoClaudia Marcela Pineda could lack breakfast, lunch and dinner, but María José Sánchez and Kristhyan Pineda —his 11-year-old and 2-year-old children—never. Her loved ones agree that she preferred not to eat, as long as the little ones did not lack anything. After all, they were the reason for her life. Therefore, the audio that was released moments before she and her daughter died in the middle of the Arizona desert, which is between the United States and Mexico, is heartbreaking:—" Mommy, I'm hungry," the little girl is heard saying. "Yeah, my love," her mother replies.
https://www.eltiempo.com/infografias/2021/09/morir_en_el_desierto/audio.html?final
The conversation, revealed on Monday, August 30 by Telemundo, was heard in the call he made to 911, when he felt that his body was out of breath to resist the heat of the area, which oscillates between 32 and 48 degrees Celsius. “I'm going to faint”, she said to the man on the other end of the line who was trying to obtain information to help her.—“Please help me,” Marcela pleads.—“How many people are with you? ?”, the agent answers. —“Two children. Please help me, I'm going to faint”.—“Do you have WhatsApp?”—“Yes, sir”.—“Check WhatsApp, I already sent you a message asking you to agree to share the coordinates”. The coordinates could never be known because Marcela's cell phone was discharged. That August 25, when the communication was made, was the last time his voice was heard. Hours before, around 6:30 in the morning (Colombian time), he had contacted his son's father, < b>Hugo Pinzón, and with a close person who was in Tunja (Boyacá) and knew about the trip he had to get to the United States. (Tragedy: Colombian woman and her daughter die crossing the US border.) “Supposedly she was going to a place where they were going to leave her at the border and there she would wait for Migration to pass. But he never told me that I had to cross a desert (...). I'm sure she didn't know that, because if she did, she wouldn't have risked the children like that," says one of her loved ones who asked to remain anonymous. Her brother, Luis Sarmiento Pineda, who in between del dolor assures that what Marcela did was for her children, "seeking a better future and well-being for everyone, but sadly she did not imagine that she would have to go through such a need, or I am sure that she would not have done it< /b>”. The death of this mother and her daughter has been a tragedy for the family and those who knew her. It is as if out of nowhere a thorn had pierced their hearts. It is a dagger that is now embedded in his soul, in his history, in his nuclear family, and it will remain there forever. It's a pain that, you know, will never go away. (The journey of the mother who died with her daughter searching for the 'American dream')
Marcela Pineda and her children
Photo: Facebook
The decision to migrate
El TiempoMarcela was 36 years old and lived alone in Tunja with her two children. Of them she was mother and father at the same time.She Every day she went out to find the money to provide them with a roof, food and education. It is not for nothing that her brother describes her as a warrior and fighter woman. “Echada pa’lante”, in his words. “He was a person who never had an easy time in life. She had to fight like any other Colombian who wants to get ahead,” she recalls. She always had informal jobs and faced with the risk of losing her job, she was measured by whatever, wherever, and whatever. Their demands went into the background, since the priority was the well-being of María José and Kristhyan. (Two out of five people are in a situation of poverty in Colombia) Before the pandemic, this Tunjana with brown hair, white complexion and drooping eyelids , he dedicated himself to attending a stationery store. However, the ravages of the virus forced the store to close its doors and she was left adrift. Then, faced with the rush of day-to-day life, she dedicated herself to selling wrappers and tamales. Then she got a job as a waitress in a cafe in the city. But, again, life did not make it easy for him. Her boss, who according to her relatives is a foreigner, constantly verbally assaulted her and every offensive word she received added to the fact that one day she made the decision to resign. He couldn't take any more abuse.At that moment, his situation was critical and his survival was hanging by a thread. The fact of never being able to quote a pension, receive premiums or have social security exhausted her. The final straw came on July 26, 2021, when a man on a motorbike approached her, pointed a gun at her and said, “Where is your ex-husband?”. as if he had seen a ghost. His face turned pale. His legs and arms trembled. He stammered a few words: "He's out of the country," he said. The subject warned her that if she did not tell him where she was, he would kill her. Within seconds, he was gone. From that moment, Marcela was afraid to go out, especially with her children, something that stopped her life plans. This threat, which she herself reported a week later to the Tunja Police, added to the instability she had in Colombia , pushed her to make the decision to go to the United States seeking political asylum to be reunited with Víctor Hugo Pinzón, Kristhyan's father, who has lived there since January 17, 2019. (USA. reopen cases of asylum seekers returned to Mexico)
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Complaint Claudia Marcela Pineda
Photo: Private file
Pinzón also fled the country due to a similar situation. “I left Tunja due to threats against my life. They attacked me at the time. I don't know if they were the same people who hurt me or who they were. I received several threats in 2018. It was evident that they wanted to harm me,” he recalls. He worked as security in several restaurants and bars in the capital of Boyacá. In the past, he had had problems with student groups from the Pedagogical and Technological University: “They stripped me naked, they accused me that I was a policeman; That made me think that the threats could come from them.” Another problem occurred at the Topa Tolondra bar, when I worked for a security and logistics company. "I was stabbed by some people that time, when I asked them to evacuate the establishment with a few minutes to go before 3 in the morning." And he continues: “There were five people drinking at a table, I cordially ask you to please get up and they attacked me; They told me that's why I was going to die." Pinzón filed a complaint with the Tunja Police on September 24, 2018. According to him, after doing so, the threats began to appear. (Increase in homicides: the weight of those who they have a profession to kill)
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Hugo Pinzón denounces
Photo: Private file
Fearing an attempt on his life, at the beginning of 2019 he traveled to the US by plane, since he had his papers in order, according to his account. Days before he said goodbye to his wife. As a result of that meeting, Marcela became pregnant, but he only found out a month and a half after leaving the country. For this reason, the little boy does not have his father's surname, but his mother's. This couple met in 2013 in a bar where they both worked. They lasted a month and a half dating, and they decided to live together until he left the country. They were six years of a unique relationship, as Pinzón describes it. Of course, with ups and downs like any other. “When I met my wife, I fell in love with her because she was the most warrior woman in the world. She had three jobs when I met her so she could raise her daughter alone,” he recalls. recounts, Marcela worked from 7 p.m. m. until 5 a.m. m. at the Zaragoza Club bar. Afterwards, she would take a bus to pick up her little girl. "He earned 25,000 pesos for the shift and had to pay 10,000 to take care of his daughter," he says. Around 9 a.m. m. he went to work at a cafeteria in the center of the city—the same one where his boss was a foreigner—until 11 a.m. m. and then I would go to a restaurant until 4 p.m. m. "She was brave and a fighter," he emphasizes. The distance separated them, and emigrating from the country meant that Hugo lost the opportunity to physically meet his son Kristhyan. For this reason, his desire for this trip was to be able to be with his entire family again, including María José, because despite not being his biological father, he behaved as if he were, as he explains.
Hugo Pinzón and Marcela Pineda
Photo: Courtesy Hugo Pinzón
Marcela, for her part, wanted to give herself a second chance to start again in another country. In Colombia, she no longer saw possibilities that would offer her or her children a promising future, and the dream of buying her own house and helping her mother, who suffers from a mental disorder, could not be achieved here, but in United States, where she planned to save to achieve it. "What did I keep doing here? Over there, on the other hand, I can work, earn more, send money to my mother," Marcela told her. to one of her classmates while they were folding clothes together. That day he confessed to her the trip he had planned to take.
Letter from María José to Hugo Pinzón, whom she considered her father.
Photo: Courtesy.
He managed to have the first dose in Cómbita (Boyacá). However, due to the pressure of time, he was unable to obtain the second one. At the farewell with the person he trusted in Colombia, he told him that he would travel to Bogotá on August 19 and there he would stay for two days at the house of his mother. a friend of Hugo Pinzón. That day they agreed that they would be in permanent contact and that she would make a report on her situation when she was in the Aztec country. He also told her that he would leave her his sim card and that he would send her some money in the next few days to pay the rent of her house. She did not want to have any debt. (The testimonies that account for the 'nightmare' of crossing the Darién) After the last goodbye in which her companion gave her her consecration medal, Marcela set out on her journey to Bogotá five days later. She did not tell her family that she was leaving the country, she only told them that she would travel to a farm with Hugo's family, in Meta. On August 21, she finally took the plane that would bring her a little closer to the United States. . The flight, according to what his loved ones say, left Colombia at 1:50 in the afternoon and arrived in Mexico City around 5:50 p.m. m. But it was only communicated again until midnight that Saturday. Apparently, they held her for a long time at Migration and until then she was able to stay in a hotel. Over the next two days, Marcela visited some tourist sites in Mexico that had special significance. Being a person who is very attached to religion, she decided to go with her little ones to visit the Basilica of Guadalupe. When he was there, he told one of his loved ones: "I am in the hands of mommy Maria and daddy God." She also sent photos via WhatsApp to her husband.
Marcela's conversations with her husband while in Mexico
On August 24, he traveled to Tijuana (Mexico). “From there she took an Uber to the city of Mexicali and that's when she continues to the border,” explains Hugo, who was waiting for her in the United States. The next day, around 6:30 in the Tomorrow (Colombian time), Marcela sent an audio to her partner telling her that she will be incommunicado for approximately eight days. She also writes to Hugo for the last time. The plan, apparently, was that she was going to transport herself to the border and there she would expect to meet immigration guards. Then he would show them the documents that supported his asylum request and there he would start the entire study process to find out if he could stay in the United States or not. (Journey to the drama of the tide of migrants in Necoclí )“When she spoke to the Immigration officials they were going to detain her to investigate why she was requesting asylum. That's when they told me she was going to be held incommunicado for two or three days," Hugo says. And he continues: "August 25 was the last day I had contact with her. She told me she was waiting for the border guard and that her cell phone was going to download, that they were asking her for her location, but she did not know where she was”.
Although he cannot find the words to understand what happened, Hugo Pinzón believes that when Marcela was at the border, she got desperate and started walking. “The battery of her cell phone was discharged. These are very difficult things to explain. She is the only one who lived at that moment until her last minutes.” However, her family believes otherwise and believes that Marcela was tricked into crossing the desert where there are daily cases of migrants trying to cross the border. In the last weekend of August this year alone, the Yuma Border Patrol reported 2,700 apprehensions, five 911 calls and two deaths there.('America is a nation of immigrants ': Joe Biden)“Agents responded to several alerts to the number of emergencies made by migrants in danger from heat and one who fell from the 30-foot border fence. In addition, a 39-year-old woman of Mexican nationality, who was among a group of seven who climbed the fence, suffered serious injuries," said a statement from the authorities. This situation is a reflection of the drama of those who decide to arrive in the country. American at all costs, regardless of the inclement weather and terrain. Official data from the US Border Patrol shows that there have been more than 7,000 migrant deaths throughout the entire border with Mexico between 1998 and 2020. Last year was when the most deaths were reported: 227 people died trying to cross through the desert. Despite this, several human rights organizations have warned that the number may be higher and denounced that the US authorities In many cases, they do not recover the bodies of the people who died in that place. In the case of Marcela and María José, their bodies were found under the hot sun in the area of Levee Road and County, in the desert area of the reserve, with no signs of violence, according to the medical report. At his side, little Kristhyan was found alive, who remains in a shelter for minors. Her father says that it is a miracle that she managed to survive. (U.S.-Mexico border: migrant arrests, the highest in 20 years) meal. She was not going to risk leaving with the children without drink, without food, with absolutely nothing. She would have thrown away the clothes she was wearing in her suitcase and filled it with food. I would have brought another battery. She didn't know about the desert, I'm completely sure”, says one of her friends.
Marcela Pineda and her daughter
Photo: Private file
Her brother, Luis Sarmiento, is convinced of the same thing: “The decision she made at that moment could have been the right one without thinking that she was going to take that risk; I don't think she knew that she was going to get involved in such madness with two children, no matter how many needs she had.” (Claudia Marcela Pineda and her daughter died in a desert in the United States.) The death of this Colombian woman and her daughter has made headlines throughout the region. Even after the audio recordings of the distressing 911 call were made public, the campaign 'The dangers of the desert' was reinforced in the United States, which seeks to alert migrants about the risks that exist by undertaking this perilous journey to fulfill the so-called 'American dream'.
In search of a reunion
El TiempoThe Colombian Foreign Ministry was barely notified of the news by the border patrol in the area of Yuma, Arizona, contacted Hugo Pinzón, according to the man. Both he and his family and close friends were devastated to learn what had happened.
https://www.eltiempo.com/infografias/2021/09/morir_en_el_desierto/amiga.html?final
Thanks to the dissemination of this tragic story, a social worker contacted Kristhyan's father and allowed him to speak with him through a video call last Wednesday the 1st. of September. Now, he is waiting for them to do a DNA test to verify the relationship and thus start the process to establish if the minor stays in the United States with him. (More than 18,000 minors are pursuing the American Dream) Marcela's family, for their part, authorized her and María José's bodies to be cremated in the North American country. Hugo assures that he plans to hold a ceremony on the beaches of Florida to say goodbye and then send the ashes to Colombia so that his family can say goodbye to them. “I asked his brother for authorization, authenticated by a notary, and to the biological father of the girl to cremate them. The money was raised, which was almost $3,000. Now I have to pay another 300 dollars so that the ashes and death certificates are sent to Florida,” says Hugo. This father longs to be reunited with his son for good and to meet him for the first time. Happiness, however, will not be complete, since neither his partner nor the minor, whom he considered his daughter, will be with him. (See here all the multimedia specials of EL TIEMPO) The drama of this family is a reflection of what that hundreds have lived in the world for decades. Millions of people feel suffocated and overwhelmed by their living conditions in their countries, and they long to appease that feeling by traveling to the northern country to try to get some money to help ease their despair. It is a harsh reality that is recorded daily and that, it seems, has become a landscape in society. Beyond the reports and statistics, what is known are human stories, of people, friends, fathers, mothers or siblings. Some are unknown and lie in a desert of oblivion. Others, like Marcela and María José, are registered. Ultimately, they all have something in common: the frustrated search for the ‘American dream’.
Credits
El TiempoEditorial: Aura María Saavedra Álvarez (@AuraSaavedra_) and David Alejandro López Bermúdez (@lopez03david), journalists from ELTIEMPO.COM. Central Table Editor: Jhon Torres.Digital design: Juan Sebastián Forero.Layout: Carlos Bustos.Photos: courtesy and private files.
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