With only 3 and 5 years of age, they traveled alone. Human traffickers launched them from at least 10 meters above the border wall between Mexico and the United States. BioBioChile collected part of the story, in the area of the facts.
It is a story that shows infamy, a hidden face of reality, through two Ecuadorian girls who were looking for an American dream still incomprehensible in their minds.
They are not the only ones suffering in the middle of childhood the ravages of poverty, inequality, lack of opportunities in their countries, human trafficking and more.
A few meters from where a violation of children’s rights occurred, a year later, another pair of faces so close and far from two realities.
The first promises dreams and prosperity. The other, with Trump’s wall standing in the way, has urgent social problems to solve, on the other side in the apparently forgotten limits of Chihuahua.
BioBioChile witnessed the latter, just as the El Paso Border Patrol was showing the site where South American girls were mercilessly dumped by adults who make a living offending other desperate human beings.
Such as occurs in the Chilean Atacama desert, when they guide Venezuelans towards a dream that is not real, without the guarantee of an economic power.
Ecuadorian girls thrown over the border wall, without mercy
On the way, at the end of last June, we were warned of the dangers of illegally crossing the southern border between Mexico and the US.
Ciudad Juárez and Chihuahua, on the limits of sleep and hell. One, predicting prosperity to those who conquer it. The second, with spectators and prisoners of drug cartels and inequality.
In Santa Teresa, El Paso, part of the huge iron structure, with bars cold as reality, trying to contain those who are not welcome.
The Border Patrol agent, Orlando Marrero, recalled that in the same area where the tour was leading us, two Ecuadorian girls were thrown by human traffickers from 10 meters high.
The perpetrators had as accomplices the solitary journey of the infants and the darkness of the night. But everything was captured by powerful cameras, with infrared technology.
“A year ago a viral video was seen where two ‘coyotes’ are seen, two traffickers shooting, dropping two girls with the simple mission of distracting our agents and diverting our resources towards those two girls so that they can do their misdeeds ”the agent commented.
The infants were 3 and 5 years old, an age inversely proportional to the trauma experienced, caused in the absence of their attachment figures, by two subjects who fled to the side of Chihuahua, where the US immigration authority cannot proceed against them by jurisdiction.
“We ask for dollars”: the children of Ciudad Juárez and the border wall
A few meters from the trauma experienced by the two Ecuadorian girls, the other face of childhood.
She is not a luckier one. This is another nuance in the midst of inequality, human trafficking and the operations of the Juárez Cartel.
BioBioChile confirmed it in images and innocent testimonies, which have as background a dark world on the Mexican side. So close and far from the American dream, in the conflictive Ciudad Juárez, state of Chihuahua.
Would you like to be on this side at some point? We ask them. The first fortnight of August 2022, by the way, had 66 violent deaths in the north of this state, according to The Herald of Juarez.
“Yes, because it is very beautiful there”Said one of the children who live near the border wall, to which they cling daily to contemplate a step that is not allowed.
They assure that their relatives have never crossed to the side of the one we asked them little about, because they warned us that drug and human traffickers would be attentive to our presence and that of the Texas Border Patrol.
– And your parents don’t tell you not to come here?
– No, because sometimes they give us dollars, they give us money”.
Indeed, after our brief chat, they asked for a couple of dollars and asked if we speak Spanish.
The life of these infants from Ciudad Juárez takes place between asking for the coveted green ticket from their neighbors and avoiding the dangers of their habitat. One, that is far from the dream that others try to achieve and enormous risks for their age, as in the case of the girls who were released from that same place by human traffickers.
Ecuadorian girls and their destiny
More than a year has passed since the Ecuadorian girls were thrown 10 meters from the wall, between Ciudad Juárez and Sunland Park, El Paso.
in conversation with Telemundothe head of the Border Patrol, Gloria Chávez, said that they have identified the traffickers of people who usually operate that border sector and that they work with Mexican authorities to find their whereabouts.
Meanwhile and without reporting arrests, the minors live with their mother in New York, waiting to sort out their immigration fate, which may take years to be defined in a US court.
Prior to that meeting, they visited them in a juvenile center where they were assisted and, despite the trauma experienced, they spoke with patrol agents and their chief. Gloria Chávez described them calm and overcoming the terrible moment.
The El Paso Border Patrol assured BioBioChile, during its visit to the southern border between the United States and Mexico, that it is not constant to see minors, unaccompanied by their parents, trying to cross guided by “coyotes” or traffickers.
However, the case of these two infants shows the desperation of their parental figures, or other relatives, who risk the lives of their children to make them reach US territory, without knowing that human traffickers will not protect their integrity, because his illicit business is not intended to take care of the lives of adults or children.