Guatemalan girl laid to rest in Christmas Day funeral that was too much for grieving mother
A crowd of mourners said goodbye to Guatemalan migrant girl Jakelin Caal, seven, who died in US custody this month, laying her to rest in a Christmas Day funeral.
The girl’s death left her mother so crushed that she could not bear to attend.
Friends and family lowered Jakelin’s body into a grave in an impoverished mountain village in Guatemala, about 3,200 kilometres from where she died in hospital at El Paso, Texas, on December 8 after a high fever.
Relatives and neighbours took turns carrying the girl’s white coffin, trudging along a muddy road to a tiny cemetery where only seven grey tombs marked the earth.
The sun shone and a small speaker played religious songs at the graveside where about 150 people gathered to bid Jakelin farewell.
But it was too much for her mother and grandfather, her uncle Jose Manuel Caal said.
“They couldn’t bear the sadness,” said Mr Caal, 33.
One grandmother and two uncles were the only close relatives from the indigenous Q’eqchi Maya family who attended.
Jakelin’s father is still in the US, where he and his daughter turned themselves in to US border agents on December 6, hoping they could find a way of starting a new life.
Jakelin died from a combination of cardiac arrest, brain swelling and liver failure, US officials said.
Her death raised questions about how migrants are treated by authorities and fuelled criticism from opponents of US President Donald Trump’s tough immigration policies.
US authorities are investigating the death.
On Tuesday, another Guatemalan child, a boy, eight, died after being detained by US border agents.
A UN human rights expert on Monday called on US authorities to stop detaining children.
Jakelin and her father were among thousands of Central American migrants who abandoned their homes to head for the US in recent months in a bid to escape poverty or violence.
Many Central Americans who travelled in a recent migrant caravan are still stuck south of the border in Mexico.
Rax Kok, 34, a farmer at Tuesday’s funeral, said he was troubled by how much migration there had been from his town.
“I’m so worried because there’s been a wave, an era of Q’eqchi leaving for three years now,” Mr Kok said.
“We don’t have anything. All there is to do is to migrate and everyone’s leaving.”
Her death raised questions about how migrants are treated by authorities and fuelled criticism of US President Donald Trump