When 15-year-old Robelson Isidro leaves Guatemala this month, he promises his worried mother that he will remain in close contact during his trip to the United States.
She begged him not to go, but he assured her it was for the best.
He spent only $ 3 a day in the coffee fields around Comitancillo, a largely indigenous city in the western highlands of Guatemala. With a few years of American wages, he hoped to buy the family a home.
“We’re almost at the border,” he wrote on Facebook Messenger to his mother, Maria Isidro, on January 21, explaining that he would cross Texas the next morning.
This was the last time she heard of her eldest son.
A few days later, she saw news reports that lowered her stomach. Nineteen cremated bodies were discovered 20 kilometers from the U.S. border in northern Mexico.
A call to one of the smugglers who arranged the trip confirms her worst fear: Robelson and 12 others from Comitancillo were among the dead.
Mexican officials say it could take weeks to identify the bodies, which police discovered on January 23 in a burnt-out SUV on a dirt road in Santa Anita in the eastern border state of Tamaulipas. They were littered with gunshot wounds and were charred beyond recognition.
But Robelson’s mother and other families from Comitancillo say they are sure 13 of the dead are their children. On Monday, the families traveled to Guatemala’s capital for six hours to deliver DNA samples to the country’s foreign ministry, which were then sent to the Mexican authorities.
There is a long history of horrific violence against migrants in the northeastern border area of Mexico. Law enforcement is deeply corrupt, and a changing list of criminal groups is fighting for control of smuggling routes – whether the cargo is drugs or people. Migrants are frequent victims of extortion, kidnapping and murder.
In 2010, members of the Zetas cartel stopped two tractor trailers full of migrants and took them to a farm in the city of San Fernando, which is also in the state of Tamaulipas.
The gangsters asked the migrants to get men for their cartel. When the migrants refused, they were blindfolded, tied up and shot. Only one man survived, a young Ecuadorian who played dead and then escaped and walked miles to warn authorities.
The following year there was a worse slaughter in the same region. Several buses were stopped and nearly 200 migrants were ordered, killed and buried in graves that police discovered shortly thereafter.
The dangers of the trekking route are well known in Central America. That is why Maria Isidro was so worried.
“I do not want you to go,” she told her son firmly.
“No, Mom,” he said. “I am going.”
In Comitancillo, where many people speak the native Mam language, most homes are made of adobe brick, and many do not have running water. Every year, a handful of children die from malnutrition.
Life has always been difficult. But recently, things have become even more difficult. Heavy storms damaged crops. The COVID-19 pandemic has slowed trade in the region.
The state of San Marcos, where Comitancillo is located, has one of the highest percentages of malnutrition in Guatemala, with 70% of children not getting enough nutrients in their diet.
Robelson no longer wanted to live in poverty. His family owned almost nothing, not even their humble home that had a kitchen.
The community sent a long history of migrants to the United States, and he had uncles who lived there. They had indoor kitchens. They do not have to cook outside under a tarpaulin.
“He was ashamed,” his mother said in a telephone interview. She said he told her: ‘I’m going to fight to make my dreams come true. I need to put my siblings ahead of life. I’m going to get them out of poverty. ”
His uncles wired him money to make the trip north.
He traveled with a few dozen other people from the region, many teenagers. Some apparently came to the United States and notified their families at home, Maria Isidro said.
Comitancillo Mayor Héctor Lopez Ramírez told Mexican news website Animal Politico that he heard the migrants were on their way to the border on January 22 with three trucks when one crashed. He said passengers in the other two trucks reported hearing gunshots.
Human rights advocates condemned the incident, saying increasingly militarized immigration enforcement in the United States and across the region made it more likely that migrants would end up in the hands of smugglers.
A group of Guatemalan bishops has issued a statement urging law enforcement agencies to investigate the attack “in the same way they organized to stop the caravan”, a reference to a recent group of thousands of mostly Honduran migrants who had previously was turned back by Guatemalan security forces. they could cross Mexico.
Guatemalan lawmaker Mario Ernesto Galvez, representing Comitancillo, called on federal authorities to do more for the country’s rural communities.
“They cannot find development opportunities in their hometowns, which have historically been completely abandoned by the government,” he wrote on social media. “The dream of our children and youth is to reach the United States.”
Maria Isidro, meanwhile, is awaiting confirmation that her son is dead.
She said she knew in her heart that he was one of the victims, but still hoped her phone would ring. She can imagine the voice of her eldest son and say, “I live here, mother.”
Staff Writer Linthicum reported from Mexico City and Special Correspondent Abt from Guatemala City. Special correspondent Cecilia Sanchez in The Times’ Mexico City office contributed to this report.