Villagers offer prayers, hope for missing Texas migrants
SAN MARCOS ATEXQUILAPAN, Mexico — Clutching rosaries, residents of this mountain village stared at photographs of three of their own atop the altar at the local church, praying that teenagers Jair, Yovani and Misael were not among the 53 migrants who perished inside a stifling trailer in Texas.
The wait for confirmation has been agonizing for families from Mexico to Honduras. For now parents re-read last messages, swipe through photos, wait for a phone call and pray.
Not far from the church, outside the Olivares family’s neat two-story homes , a black tarp was hung Thursday to shade the dozens of people who have come each day to be with the parents of teenage brothers Yovani and Jair Valencia Olivares and the mother and father of their cousin, 16-year-old Misael Olivares Monterde.
Such a covering is customary for wakes, when the family home cannot accommodate all those who come to pay their respects. But in this case it is a vigil where residents of the town of 3,000 come to buoy the family’s spirits, praying and swapping stories about the boys.
Teofilo Valencia, father of 19-year-old Jair and 16-yearold Yovani, sat looking at his phone, reading the last messages he received from them.
“Dad, now we’re going to San Antonio,” Yovani wrote at 11:16 a.m. Monday. A halfhour later, his brother wrote to their father that they were ready to work hard and pay for everything.
Hours later came the horrific discovery of the semitrailer abandoned on the outskirts of that south Texas city.
The family did not hear of the ill-fated trailer until Tuesday. They tried to reach the boys, but the messages and calls didn’t go through. They went that same day to government offices, providing whatever information could help in the search.
On Wednesday, Mexico’s consul in San Antonio confirmed that residents of the Gulf coast state of Veracruz — in which San Marcos is located — were among the 27 Mexican victims. On Thursday, state lawyers traveled to San Antonio to assist in identifications.
Meanwhile, the Olivares wait and pray.
The wait ended Thursday for the family of Jazmin Nayarith Bueso Nunez in El Progreso, Honduras. Their prayers for her safe return were not answered. She was confirmed as being among the dead in San Antonio.
Bueso Nunez suffered from lupus, an immunological disease, that had cost her a job in an assembly plant and whose treatments were very costly, her family said.
A family friend had offered to help her travel to the United States, where she hoped to find better-paying work to help support the 15-year-old son she left with her parents and to find treatment for her disease.
Before leaving June 3, the 37-year-old told her father she intended to migrate.
She was in Laredo when they last spoke. She told him the smugglers were going to take their phones before going on, so she wouldn’t be able to communicate for a time.