WARNING: Devastating photo of drowned migrant father and young daughter at border shows perils desperate families face

New York Daily News, The (NY)

It's a haunting image of unspeakable tragedy -- the lifeless bodies of a Salvadoran father and his young daughter floating face-down in the Rio Grande after drowning in an attempted border crossing.

The little girl's arm is draped around her dad's neck in one final, heartrending embrace.

The photograph, taken Monday near the banks of Matamoros, Mexico, across the mighty river from Brownsville, Texas, shocks the conscience.

Captured by journalist Julia Le Duc and published by Mexican newspaper La Jornada, it reportedly shows Oscar Alberto Martinez Ramirez, 25 or 26, and his 23-month-old daughter Valeria.

Martinez and his family fled violence and poverty in El Salvador and were hoping to gain asylum in the U.S. before their faith in a brighter future was dashed, the newspaper said.

The drowning happened Sunday after Martinez successfully carried his daughter across the powerful river, set her on the U.S. shore and then attempted to swim back to retrieve his wife, Tania Vanessa Avalos, the paper said.

Seeing her dad turn back, the tiny girl threw herself into the water, and as Martinez grabbed her again, the current swept them both away, La Jornada said.

Avalos gave her account of what happened through "tears" and "screams" during a police interview, Le Duc told The Associated Press.

Martinez's mother in El Salvador, Rosa Ramirez, spoke with her daughter-in-law by phone after the tragedy and then recounted more details to the AP.

"When the girl jumped in is when he tried to reach her, but when he tried to grab the girl, he went in further ... and he couldn't get out," Ramirez said. "He put her in his shirt, and I imagine he told himself, 'I've come this far' and decided to go with her."

Ramirez said her son and his family left El Salvador on April 3 and spent about two months in a shelter at Mexico's border with Guatemala before venturing north again.

"I begged them not to go, but he wanted to scrape together money to build a home," Ramirez said. "They hoped to be there a few years and save up for the house."

The drowning deaths happened the same weekend the bodies of a young woman, two toddlers and an infant were found dead on federal land near McAllen, Texas, only about an hour from Brownsville.

A source told the Daily News the three victims, thought to be migrants, likely died from dehydration and heat exposure.

A total of 283 migrant deaths were recorded last year, the AP said. 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.

The search for Martinez and his daughter was suspended Sunday due to darkness, and their bodies were discovered the next morning, several hundred yards from where they had tried to cross.

El Salvador's foreign ministry reportedly said it was working to assist Avalos and other relatives. The bodies of the drowned father and daughter were expected to be flown back to El Salvador in a matter of days.

Le Duc's chilling photograph quickly drew comparisons to the famous 2015 image of little Alan Kurdi, the 3-year-old Syrian boy who drowned in the Mediterranean and washed up on a beach in Turkey.

"Very regrettable that this would happen," Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said Tuesday in response to a question about the photograph. "As there is more rejection in the United States, there are people who lose their lives in the desert or crossing (the river)."

The White House had no immediate comment.

President Trump's crackdown on immigration has dramatically reduced the number of migrants allowed to request asylum at ports of entry.

A Mexican official told the AP that Martinez arrived in Matamoros early Sunday and went to the U.S. Consulate to try to get a date to request asylum.

It's not clear what happened, but he later attempted the ill-fated river crossing and died along with his little girl.

Experts said new restrictions placed on asylum seekers could lead to increasingly desperate measures undertaken by people trying to enter the U.S.

"It's a horrifying image," human rights advocate Maureen Meyer, a specialist on immigration at the Washington Office on Latin America, told the AP.

"I think it speaks so clearly to the real risks of these U.S. programs that are either returning people back to Mexico seeking asylum or in this case limiting how many people can enter the U.S. every day," she said.

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