A group of about 14 Cuban migrants, including a family with a three-year-old child, had to be rescued by Mexican and US authorities when they were about to be swept away by the currents of the Rio Grande.
“They are trying to cross a very dangerous area,” a reporter from ImpactoVisión Noticias said in a live broadcast of the event, which showed the force of the river current pulling branches with it as it swept through the area. , just under one of the bridges connecting Mexico and the United States, in the town of Piedras Negras.
Despite the force of the current and warnings from locals, the group set out to cross the river with their belongings packed in plastic bags. Arms locked to form a chain and to help one another in an emergency, the Cubans entered the river with a calm that soon turned to dangerous chaos.
The three-year-old looked very calm on his father’s shoulders. Barely twenty yards from shore on the Mexican side, the Cubans began to lose their footing in the riverbed and were soon up to their necks in water. Within seconds the man was at the mercy of the current with the child on his shoulders, struggling to stay afloat with the little boy on his back.
“They panicked! The water is taking them away!” the Mexican reporter excitedly stated, asking the Mexican rescuers (apparently from humanitarian organizations or local authorities) for help. “The boats from the United States have already come to the rescue of the Cubans,” he said while recording the US authorities’ intervention on his cell phone.
What just minutes before was a chain of migrants, advancing steadily through the waters towards the United States, very soon became a mass of people swept along by the current, who could do very little to help one another , and which eventually dismembered and separated, creating several situations of great danger.
The most embarrassing was undoubtedly the father with his son behind his back. “Take care of the child! A vest please! Oh my God, help them!” the Mexican reporter shouted while recording the movement of a US border patrol boat that approached the Cuban migrants and began throwing life jackets at them.
On the Mexican side, a lifeguard was also activated by local authorities and humanitarian groups, who rushed to the aid of Cubans swept away by the current of the Rio Grande, throwing lifebelts with ropes at them, which they pulled to bring the migrants to shore. . The father and son were able to hold on to one of these buoys and escape from danger.
Eventually some migrants seem to have managed to reach the US side. The Mexican reporter’s interruption in transmission prevented the full rescue sequence from being seen, but he managed to get the testimony of one of the Cuban women named Isabel, who managed to be rescued and lured to the Mexican bank of the river.
“Are you shocked? What did you think when you were swept away by the current?” the journalist asked the 25-year-old Cuban. “No; My only thought was to stay afloat until I could walk,” the tearful young woman said to her family, whose members apparently managed to cross the river.
The father of the three-year-old was also questioned. “Were you ever scared?” the reporter asked as they recovered from the shock on the shore. “Not for me, but for my son yes,” replied the young man. “We saw that at some point you went under completely, what were you thinking at the time?” the journalist asked him again. “Nothing that he didn’t sink and swallowed water.”
“Where did you get to after Piedras Negras?” the journalist wanted to know. “For Nicaragua,” the 31-year-old Cuban replied, assuring that the bridging took “about 16 days” and “quite a lot of suffering” happened. “The mother is in the United States,” he said amid the shock caused by the unfortunate experience.