Latin America
Related: About this forumA violent end to a desperate dream leaves a Guatemalan town grieving
22 Mar, 2021 11:00 PM
7 minutes to read
The burial of Edgar López y López in Comitancillo, Guatemala.
Photographs by Daniele Volpe
Written by Kirk Semple
March 21, 2021
The trek from Central America to U.S. soil has always been perilous, but a massacre with many victims from one corner of Guatemala has shaken that country.
They leave behind homes, families, everything they have known, taking their chances on a dangerous trek north toward an uncertain future, driven by poverty, lack of opportunity and the hope of something better.
For most migrants who leave Central America, like those from the municipality of Comitancillo, in the mountains of western Guatemala, the goal is to reach the United States, find work, save some money and send some back home, put down roots, maybe even find love and start a family. Usually, the biggest obstacle is crossing the increasingly fortified American border without being caught.
A group of 13 migrants who left Comitancillo in January didnt even get the chance. Their bodies were found, along with those of six other victims, shot and burned; the corpses were piled in the back of a pickup truck that had been set on fire and abandoned in the Mexican state of Tamaulipas, just shy of the U.S. border. A dozen state police officers have been arrested in connection with the massacre.
The migrants remains made the return trip on Friday, March 12, each in a coffin draped with the Guatemalan flag, flown to a military airport in Guatemala City. A somber repatriation ceremony there, with an address by President Alejandro Giammattei, was shown live on national television. Relatives, friends and neighbors in Comitancillo watched the broadcast in their homes as they made final preparations for the arrival of the bodies and for the wakes and burials to follow.
At dusk, after climbing along the switchbacks that wind through Guatemalas western highlands, the cortege of vehicles carrying 12 of the coffins arrived in Comitancillo. Community leaders and the victims families received the bodies in a ceremony on the towns soccer field.
Above, neighbors stand on an outcrop watching the welcoming ceremony in a soccer field in Comitancillo. Below, seating was limited to close family members.
Some mourned from behind a fence, in the glow of an ambulances emergency lights.
. . .
A band playing outside a house that Mr. López had built in Chicajalaj, a village in the municipality of Comitancillo, with remittances he sent back from the United States.
More:
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/21/world/americas/guatemala-migrants-massacre-comitancillo.html