Page 12 - ARUBA TODAY

A12 WORLD NEWS
Thursday 6 June 2019
Guatemalans still risk migration despite child deaths in US

By SONIA PÉREZ D. da," his mother's name. The
Associated Press boy weighed just 19 pounds
CAMOTAN, Guatemala (8.6 kilograms) and routine-
(AP) — Flies buzzed around ly suffered from cough and
the drinking water and fevers.
food in the home of Ericka "He couldn't even eat," Cas-
Gutiérrez Vásquez, as her tillo said. "We put food into
6-year-old son, Darwin, lay his mouth but he couldn't
bedridden with diarrhea chew, only swallow."
and vomiting. There was no money for
Darwin fell ill in a detention health exams to determine
center in Mexico before why he was apparently not
the two were deported developing properly for his
back to Guatemala re- age.
cently while trying to emi- Hilda and Wilmer left home
grate to the United States. in March and took 22 days
Once he's better, they plan to make the journey to the
to strike out north again. U.S. border. The boy be-
News of the deaths of five came ill on the way through
Guatemalan children in Mexico and crossed into
U.S. immigration custody the United States with a
in the last half year — in- high fever and difficulty
cluding two recently from breathing. Wilmer was di-
Quiquimula department, or agnosed with pneumonia,
province, where Gutiérrez In this Tuesday, May 28, 2019 photo, women wait in line with their containers to collect water in the according to the Guate-
lives — has reached the re- village of El Tesoro, in Guatemala's eastern department of Chiquimula. malan consul in Del Rio,
mote, sweltering towns and Associated Press Texas, and died about a
hamlets of eastern Guate- month later at a children's
mala. But it's not dissuading grants hoping for succor in Gutiérrez, said the family is consumption," Aldana said, hospital on May 14. An au-
people from attempting the United States, despite so poor that on some days let alone to sell for income. topsy is pending.
their own arduous migra- warnings by President Don- she eats just one of the two Guatemalan officials have Castillo said Hilda felt
tions with offspring in tow, ald Trump not to come, a meals she's accustomed distanced themselves from forced to leave Guate-
often as young as toddlers crackdown on transmigra- to. responsibility for child mi- mala, where she was rais-
and sometimes already in tion by Mexico and Trump's Juan died April 30 at a Tex- grations. ing the boy without support
delicate health. threats to slap stiff tariffs on as youth detention facility "We are not leading these from her ex-husband, who
"It's terrifying," Gutiérrez, that country if it doesn't do after having complained children by the hand. It is emigrated to Spain. She re-
25, said of the deaths. even more to discourage by phone to his mother the parents who are taking mains in the United States,
But she's been unable to the flow of mostly Central of headaches and sleep- these minors and exposing free while her asylum case
find work even though American migrants. lessness. According to the them in a way that we are is pending.
she's a licensed teacher, Gutiérrez and Darwin first Nueces County medical now arriving at five deaths," Wilmer's family had barely
and what's more, she has left May 15, only to be de- examiner in Corpus Christi, Foreign Minister Sandra Jo- buried the body and was
no other way to pay the tained two days later in Vil- Texas, a doctor determined vel said recently. still in the middle of nine
$5,000 debt she took on to lahermosa, Mexico. By May he had a rare condition in- The government has pro- days of prayer and mourn-
pay the coyote, or smug- 22, they were deported volving forehead swelling vided consular support ing when others in the com-
gler. Coyotes typically let back to Guatemala. Her caused by infection in the for the grieving families of munity departed.
migrants try again free of family doesn't want her to frontal bone. dead minors and covered "Women and men with their
charge if they fail to make try again, but her mind is Days later back in the cost of repatriating children, they're always
it the first time. "Right now made up. Tizamarte, two neighbors, their bodies. leaving," Castillo said. "Peo-
he is waiting for me to tell And going solo isn't an op- a father and his 8-year-old But Gutiérrez Vásquez ple believe that with their
him if I can go." tion, as the price would daughter, took off for the complained that there's children, they'll be able to
After years of prolonged double: Smugglers charge United States. practically zero assistance make it."
drought, crops have been those traveling with chil- "They left," said Gutiérrez, for families suffering in the Health Ministry official Eliu
devastated in what is one dren less because they who's on the hook for her dry corridor. Mazariego said common
of Guatemala's most im- only have to get them to son's smuggler's fee and "Here there is no help of maladies in the dry corridor
poverished regions, said the border where they turn stands to lose her, dark, hu- any kind. If you work, you are infectious disease, diar-
by locals to be largely for- themselves in to U.S. au- mid, dirt-floor adobe home eat," she said. The problem rhea and pneumonia ag-
gotten by the country's au- thorities, not slip clandes- if she can't pay. "They knew with work: "There is none." gravated by hunger.
thorities. The so-called dry tinely across the frontier. that my son had died, but Just about 20 miles (32 kilo- "Any child that has a prob-
corridor stretches across And she would have fewer they also have their needs." meters) south of Tizamarte lem, nutritionally speaking,
parts of 10 of Guatemala's options once she reaches Toribio Aldana, president lies Tituque, home of Dor- their immune system is de-
22 departments and into U.S. soil. of Tizamarte's Community otea Castillo, the grand- teriorated, any infectious
other Central American "It is easier," Gutiérrez said Council, said about 100 of mother of Wilmer Josué agent can hit them more
nations, and the United Na- matter of factly, "with the the village's 1,000 people Ramírez Vásquez. quickly," Mazariego said. "A
tions says at least 1.4 mil- boy." have emigrated so far this Wilmer was already in deli- child with malnutrition is a
lion there lack food secu- In the nearby village of year. cate health before the perfect cocktail for acquir-
rity after more than half the Tizamarte, Juan de León "The thing is, there is no trip north, Castillo said. Al- ing any pathology."
corn and bean crops were Gutiérrez, 16 and no rela- work and there is tremen- though 2 years old, he was Mazariego said the only
destroyed by drought and tion, made a similar deci- dous need. The price of not yet walking and unable solution is to address root
brief but damaging storms. sion, seeing the only es- coffee fell. For lack of rain, to hold himself upright in a problems such as poverty,
What the area does pro- cape from misery in flee- the corn and bean harvests sitting position. Nor did he exclusion and lack of ac-
duce is an increasing ing as an unaccompanied dried up — they no longer speak beyond babbling cess to basic services in
number of U.S.-bound mi- minor. His mother, Tránsito even provide enough for the words "papá" and "Hil- those communities.q