"We’re heading out," 14-year-old Wilmer messaged his mother on Monday. It was the last thing he would ever say to her.
On June 14, the teenager left his hometown of Tzucub — an Indigenous Quiche community of about 1,500 people in Guatemala — with dreams of learning English and reuniting with his older brother in the United States.
Instead, he would die alongside his cousin, Melvin Guachiac, 13, and more than 50 other migrants in the deadliest US human-smuggling tragedy on record.
"My grandson said he had a dream," Wilmer's grandmother, Pascuala Sipac, said, speaking in Quiche through a translator.
Hours after hearing Wilmer's message, a neighbour told the family there had been an accident in Texas: At least 50 people had been found dead inside a truck carrying migrants near San Antonio.
Family members confirmed the boys' deaths after seeing photos sent from a San Antonio morgue.
As loved ones of the more than 60 people packed into the tractor-trailer begin to face their worst fears and talk of their relatives' fate, a common narrative has emerged.
Some of the youngest migrants thought to have died set off from poor towns in Guatemala and Mexico, following in the footsteps of relatives seeking a better life in the United States.
'My children leave a void in my heart'
On that fateful trip, 53 of those migrants left in the sweltering heat on the outskirts of San Antonio had died as of Wednesday, while others remained in hospital.
The chief of Mexico’s National Immigration Institute, Francisco Garduño, said the dead included 27 people from Mexico, 14 from Honduras, seven from Guatemala and two from El Salvador.
Each put their lives in the hands of smugglers. Three people, including the driver of the truck, have since been detained.
News of the trailer full of bodies struck horror in cities and villages accustomed to watching their young people leave, trying to flee poverty or violence in Central America and Mexico.
In Las Vegas, Honduras, a town of 10,000 people, Alejandro Miguel Andino Caballero, 23, and Margie Tamara Paz Grajeda, 24, had hoped their degrees in marketing and economics would open doors to economic stability.
However, while the young couple spent years applying for jobs, time and again they were knocked back.
So, when a relative of Andino Caballero’s living in the United States offered to help him and his younger brother, 18-year-old Fernando José Redondo Caballero, finance the trip north, they were ready.
“I thought things were going to go well,” said Karen Caballero, the brothers’ mother.
“Who was a little afraid was Alejandro Miguel.
Ms Caballero last spoke to them Saturday morning. They told her they had crossed the Rio Grande at Roma, Texas, and were expected to head north to Houston on Monday.
On Tuesday, authorities confirmed their deaths.
“My children leave a void in my heart,” she said
'It's consuming me from the inside'
In the small town of Atexquilapan, in eastern Mexico, Teofilo and Yolanda Olivares are hoping for information about their sons, Jair, 19, and Yovani, 16.
They last heard from them on Monday morning when they messaged that they were waiting to be picked up and taken to San Antonio.
The parents are convinced their sons were on the truck, along with their cousin, 16-year-old Misael. But authorities have not told them yet, they said.
Teofilo said his sons left Atexquilapan on June 21, following other cousins who had migrated eight months ago. The boys crossed the Rio Grande on Friday.
"They had dreams of getting ahead … They had plans to open a business," Teofilo, a shoemaker, said.
Hermelina Monterde, Misael's mother, said her son had ambitions to go beyond the family's shoemaking tradition.
"He saw the work we do, where we're seated all the time, constantly seated, and it hurts our back," she said.
"He said, 'I want to go [to the United States] to work and support you all'."
AP/Reuters
