Tag: Mourning

Timeline shows final hours of second Guatemalan child to die in US custody Read more Early in December, Felipe Gómez Alonzo and his father, Agustín Gómez Peréz, left the family’s modest home in the mountains of Guatemala with dreams of starting a new life in the US. US authorities are investigating the deaths of Felipe and seven-year-old Jakelin Caal, but the circumstances which drove both families to risk sending their children on the long journey north are clear: the absolute poverty besetting swathes of rural Guatemala. “Felipe was happy to leave with his father,” said Alonzo in Chuj, an indigenous Mayan language. She said that both parents had agreed to let Felipe join his father, an agricultural worker, on his trip north. Gómez Pérez hoped to find work to pay off his debts and send money to the family. “We talked as soon as they reached the border,” she said, adding that Gómez Pérez called again the next day when the pair were already in border patrol custody. But for many in rural Guatemala migration is seen as the only hope for a better life. “People leave our village, find work in the US and send money to help their relatives,” said Pérez, who estimated about 200 people from the tiny village live in the United States. Before leaving Yalambojoch, Felipe shared a bedroom with both his parents and three siblings. Now, despite her son’s death, Alonzo still hopes he can remain in the US.