El Salvador Gets Drowned Migrants Amid Anger at U.S.

Date: 01 July 2019 - 21:04

News ID: ۶۷۵۸۹

SAN SALVADOR (AFP) -- The bodies of a man and his young daughter who drowned while trying to cross the Rio Grande from Mexico to the United States were returned on Sunday to their native El Salvador.
A shocking photo of the lifeless bodies of Oscar Alberto Martinez, who was 25, and his 23-month-old daughter Valeria lying face down in the river fueled concern and outrage around the world, with some people blaming the U.S. crackdown on border crossings for their deaths.
Hearses accompanied by a long caravan brought the two corpses to the town of La Hachadura, near the border with Guatemala.
Mario Duran, the Salvadoran minister of government, was on hand to receive the remains.
The two victims were transferred to a cemetery in southern San Salvador, to be buried after a day-long vigil.
The two asylum-seekers drowned on June 23 while trying to cross the Rio Grande into Texas, near the city of Brownsville, as the child's mother, Tania Vanessa Avalos, watched helplessly from the river bank.
Canadian cartoonist Michael de Adder drew a picture, featuring U.S. President Donald Trump standing over the dead bodies of the father and his daughter, asking them, "Do you mind if I play through.”
The cartoon went viral Wednesday and cost Adder his job, after his contract with four newspapers owned by Brunswick News, terminated.
The post, however, caught the attention of people across Canada and the US.
Trump has long been under pressure over his controversial anti-migrant policies, including the government treatment detained immigrant children, who have been kept in U.S. detention centers.
Under pressure from Trump to slow the surge of Central Americans crossing the border, Mexico promised earlier this month to reinforce its southern border with 6,000 National Guardsmen, but had not previously disclosed the extent of the crackdown on its northern border.
Over 300 migrant children were discovered last week in an overcrowded border patrol station in Texas, where they said some had been held for weeks in filthy conditions without adequate food and water.
The Trump administration was forced to reveal that a 10-year-old migrant girl died in its custody more than seven months ago, sparking further outcry after a spate of recent migrant child deaths while detained by the U.S. government.
In another incident last year, a ten-year-old Salvadoran girl died while being held in the U.S. custody. The administrator revealed her death in May, some seven months after she passed away.