- Marcos Gonzalez Diaz
- BBC News World. Special envoy to Ciudad Juárez, Mexico
image source, Juan Ortega
“I never imagined that that moment in which I felt so much despair would become so well known. I did not become famous in Venezuela and I came to become famous here, in Mexico… but for something so cruel.”
Viangly Infante became the most recognizable and painful face of the tragic fire at the center of the National Migration Institute (INM) in Ciudad Juárez, on the northern border of Mexico, which last Monday killed at least 39 people.
She is the woman who was recorded and photographed heartbroken on the night of the accident next to an ambulance, hitting the vehicle with her baby in her arms and screaming without being able to stop crying: “black! black, I’m here, black!”.
This is what she calls Eduard Caraballo, her husband and father of her three children who was inside the ambulance following being injured in the fire at the facilities where, like dozens of other migrants, he was being held.
“I looked out and saw that they were resuscitating him. That’s when I went into shock,” he recalls a day and a half following the tragedy and following visiting him at the General Hospital of Zone No. 35, where he is recovering with oxygen from the smoke poisoning he suffered .
Although the most shocking part of her testimony is just what happened before the video went viral: the young woman was also in the immigration station -although in a different area than the men- at the time the fire started.
“I started to hear screams, bangs on the walls and smoke began to come out everywhere. Through the office, the bathroom, everything. I tell them to open the door, to open the door… but they took me out into the street and left them there.”
image source, Juan Ortega
Viangly Infante became the face of the tragedy in the migrant center of Ciudad Juárez.
“Right to live”
Infante shares with BBC Mundo his terrible experience just following leaving some flowers on the improvised altar full of candles and photos that has been formed at the entrance of the migrant center where the gruesome scene occurred.
In Mexico, people do not stop talking regarding the shocking video from security cameras that is circulating on the internet and that shows how some officials from the center leave the scene once the fire starts without opening the cell in which a group of migrants remains locked up.
“They had the opportunity to open the gate and they did not. No one was detained for robbery, or death, or anything: Just for being a migrant. And they had the right to live,” laments the Venezuelan.
image source, Juan Ortega
This is how the INM facilities in Ciudad Juárez were left following the fire.
The couple arrived from La Guaira to Ciudad Juárez at the end of last year. They left behind a painful journey that thousands of migrants know well and that forces them to cross the dangerous jungle of Darién. With them, their children of 13, 12 and 1 year old traveled.
While they wait for their opportunity to cross into the United States legally, in Mexico her husband made a living selling flowers on the street. She worked in an ice cream shop, but left when her baby got sick and started having seizures for which she needs treatment.
Precisely, on the Monday that her husband was detained by the immigration authorities, he had gone out to buy medicine for her. Infante assures that there was no justification for this, since the family nucleus has a 90-day stay permit in the country and a recently approved humanitarian visa for one year.
“They got burned”
With her three children, she went to the station with all the documentation to prove that her husband’s stay in Mexico was legal. As soon as she arrived at around 2:00 p.m., they left her in the waiting room in the women’s area and assured her that they would release him shortly.
But when smoke began to appear at night from what the Mexican government called a “protest” burning of mattresses by migrants who feared deportation, she was still at the center and her husband was still locked up.
“There they took out the 15 women who were held in the family area where I was, but in which there are no bars or anything. I asked why they didn’t take the men out. And what they only told me was: they burned I despaired there”, ensures.
Juan Ortega He is one of the photographers who took the famous image of Viangly Infante the night of the tragedy. He had never had to cover an event of this seriousness and he admits that he was very nervous and did not know what to do until he heard the woman’s screams.
image source, Juan Ortega
This was the dramatic scene that Ortega found upon his arrival at the scene of the fire.
“She was the symbol of pain, of the despair that was lived in the place. You saw it and you were left cold, you felt her despair and her impotence of not knowing what was happening with her husband, and seeing that every time more were wounded and there were more deaths,” remember.
The woman estimates that it took firefighters regarding 15 minutes to arrive. The damage suffered to her respiratory tract means that her husband can barely speak yet, but he told her that if she might save herself from dying in the flames, it was because He went into the bathroom to protect himself.
“At that moment, I didn’t care regarding the smoke, I didn’t care regarding anything. I just wanted them to open the bars. What I ask of the authorities is that they be a little more humane and put their hands on their hearts.” , claim.
image source, Juan Ortega
Viangly Infante visits her husband in the hospital every day and trusts in his speedy recovery.
“The fatty”
On the makeshift altar in honor of the victims, you can see the photo of two of them: Óscar José Regalado, who died in the fire; and Jeison Daniel Catari, who was injured.
In the image you can see both of them in a van that their friends identify as the Migration vehicle in which they were taken to the center last Monday. It was the last news they had of them before finding out from the media what happened at night.
Both made a living, as can be seen with so many other migrants on the streets of Ciudad Juárez, stationed at traffic lights offering to clean car windows in exchange for a few coins.
image source, Juan Ortega
Óscar José Regalado (in the photo on the left, next to the wounded Jeison Daniel Catari) is one of the fatalities.
His friends say that when the authorities arrived, Catari might not escape because he has trouble walking. For this reason, Regalado -who was affectionately called “el Gordito”- he stayed with him so as not to leave him alone.
“His plan was to enter the United States, we have been here since December. We are speechless because we met here… until we became brothers. Not blood brothers, but yes street brothers”says Gilbert, a Venezuelan friend of the deceased who keeps some of his clothes such as a blanket and a sweater.
Like their companions, other migrants who are dedicated to cleaning windshields, selling sweets or begging for money on the streets were the object of an arrest operation on Monday by the authorities.
After some acts of protest by migrants in recent weeks, the mayor of Ciudad Juárez, Cruz Pérez Cuéllar, announced that he would have a “stronger” position in caring for the city. “Our patience is running out,” he warned migrants who remain in his municipality while they wait for their opportunity to cross into the US and formally request their asylum request.
But despite the accusations and the tension on the part of the population before the arrival of more and more migrants in Ciudad Juárez -which serves as a containment room to comply with the policy dictated from Washington-, Gilbert greatly thanks the citizens who have supported them. with warm clothes or food when they have needed it.
image source, Juan Ortega
Gilbert was a friend of one of those killed in the fire.
“It is sad to see that the same people of Juárez support us, and the same Migration that is there to protect us hits us hard. Because if we are working on the street, we are not hurting anyone,” he protests.
Despite the fact that most of the victims of the fire were of Central American origin, curiously there are hardly any compatriots around the INM in Ciudad Juárez. A man from Olancho, in Honduras, is one of the few exceptions. “I didn’t know any of the victims, but still, they were migrants like me”he says unable to hold back the tears
Despair
Sometimes, some of the migrants gathered in front of the INM center cannot hide their anger and begin to rebuke the guards who guard the facilities. “Justice! Murderers, that’s what they wanted to lock you up for! they scream.
“Sometimes indignation comes over us and we yell things at them because we want them to feel that we are hurt. And for them to feel that we are not afraid,” explains Eric, a Venezuelan who has been in Ciudad Juárez for less than three months.
image source, Juan Ortega
Eric also meets these days around the INM to show his support for the victims and demand justice.
In an attempt to clarify the case, the Prosecutor’s Office announced this Wednesday that a group of alleged perpetrators of the tragedy have been identified, including center officials, private guards and at least the migrant who allegedly started the fire. Four arrest warrants have already been requested for them.
But, regardless of what happens with the investigation, Eric assures that many compatriots say that they are no longer going to let themselves be detained by Immigration agents. That if the police want to catch them, they even prefer to be put “as real prisoners” in a legal prison if they have committed a crime. “Don’t let them say that they put you in a shelter like this, and it’s really camouflaged as a prison”.
The truth is that, following months in Ciudad Juárez, the desperation among many migrants is more than evident. They live in a continuous wait for news regarding their cases or news regarding a possible easing of restrictions on entry to the US -such as the definitive elimination of Title 42 that allows automatic returns to Mexican territory in the framework of the pandemic- that never come.
This Wednesday, the rumor spread that They were allowing access through gate 36 of the US border. Without any other proof, hundreds and hundreds of migrants preferred not to risk losing the opportunity and started the path from the INM to there, which might take up to two hours walking under a scorching sun.
image source, Juan Ortega
Hundreds of migrants moved this Wednesday to a point on the border with the hope of being able to cross.
“Do you know something? Are they really letting in?” a woman asked the journalists. “Nothing, they say there’s a hole they’re going through, but I don’t think so…”, another young woman replied.
It seemed too good to be true and, as expected, door 36 was not open. But since they got there, many of the migrants decided to try to cross the border, as happened a few weeks ago. This time, there were no clashes and the people were returned to Mexico.
image source, Juan Ortega
Some of the migrants tried to cross the border into the US.
Viangly Infante, for his part, is looking forward to Saturday, when he will finally have his interview with the US authorities who will decide on his application for admission. Unfortunately, she still doesn’t know if her husband will be out of the hospital by then.
“If they give it to me… I can’t leave him in the hospital, I have to find a solution. But I don’t want to miss the appointment either. He is excited and says he’s coming with me on Saturday. I wish they would let it go too.”
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