Salvador prez: Drown tragedy partly our fault
El Salvador’s president said his country bears responsibility for the recent drownings of a migrant father and his toddler daughter in the Rio Grande.
President Nayib Bukele told the BBC that his government must do more to confront the issues of violence and poverty that force people like desperate dad Oscar Martinez and his wife and 23-month-old daughter Valeria to make the arduous 1,500-mile journey to seek asylum in the U.S.
“People don’t flee their homes because they want to. People flee their homes because they feel they have to,” he said in the capital, San Salvador.
“Why? Because they don’t have a job, because they are being threatened by gangs, because they don’t have basic things like water, education, health,” he said.
“We can blame any other country, but what about our blame? What country did they flee? Did they flee the United States? They fled El Salvador, they fled our country. It is our fault.”
The bodies of Martinez and his daughter were found facedown on the river banks in Matamoros, Mexico, just across from southern Texas.
Haunting photograph of the little girl tucked in her dad’s shirt, her arm still around his neck, caused an international outcry over the perils migrants face trying to reach the U.S. and President Trump’s crackdown on asylum seekers.
Bukele, who took office a month ago, vowed to work toward making El Salvador a safer place with more opportunity for its citizens.
He said the father and daughter found themselves in a dangerous situation because they lost hope in El Salvador.
“I think migration is a right, but it should be an option, not an obligation. And right now it’s an obligation for a lot of people,” he said.
The bodies of Martinez and Valeria were found on June 24, soon after a young woman, two toddlers and an infant were found dead on federal land near McAllen, Texas. A source told the Daily News the four, thought to be migrants, likely died from dehydration and heat exposure.
At least 283 migrants died on the U.S.-Mexico border in 2018, according to U.S. Border Patrol, but human rights activists say the number is likely higher.
The official toll so far this year has not been released, but three children and an adult from Honduras died in April after their raft capsized on the Rio Grande.