In September 2024, Francisca Ramírez saw Guayaquil for the last time, the city where she was born. She had two of her children, one of whom was on the verge of losing him as a result of an attack by gang members who shot him 12 times in the body and kept him in intensive care in the hospital for several months. When the 17-year-old had recovered, Francisca spoke to her husband, children and brother that it was time to leave the country to seek refuge in the United States. They agreed to make the trip to leave their homeland forever.
Four months after fleeing Ecuador, a country hit by the violence of two criminal organizations, Francisca, 45 years old, has no plans to return. “I don’t plan to go back there. Not at all. I have no turning back.” During the last semester of 2024, she sold her furniture and her house in Guayaquil, money that she has used for the trip that is about to complete four months. The family applied for asylum in the United States, but received no response.
During the month that the family remained in Tapachula, they applied for asylum with the Mexican Commission for Refugee Assistance (Comar). Tired of waiting, the five Ecuadorians decided to join one of the groups of migrants that left Tapachula for the center of the country at the beginning of January.
On the coast, they decided to buy a tricycle for 1,500 pesos, where they put their suitcases, water and food, but as the group moved forward and reached Oaxaca, it dispersed, so they decided to resell the vehicle.
Francisca recalls that, at the beginning of 2024, a group of gang members carried out an armed attack on the house where her 17-year-old son was, who survived despite 12 gunshot wounds he received in various parts of his body, one near the heart, another in an arm, another near the spine, another at the height of the abdomen. As a result, the young man was left with a colostomy, but he has still traveled more than three thousand kilometers. He crossed rivers, flooded and muddy areas in the Darien jungle and has endured extreme temperatures during the trip.
The day the gang members attacked the boy with their firearms, the Police counted up to 42 shots in the house where he was, but of those bullets, he received 12, which caused serious injuries to his body, which kept him in critical health condition for several months. Francisca shows reporters the scars her son has on his body. “That’s why we went out, because (the gang members) know that my son is alive and they can do worse things.”
Francisca, who was selling food, and her husband, who worked as a bricklayer, witnessed the social decomposition in Guayaquil. She saw how the gang members demanded the payment of extortion from merchants in that city, but that it has spread to other provinces such as Esmeraldas, Santo Domingo, Pichincha and Guayas.
“I sold food and they gave me money to pay weekly, so that I could give a bribe to the gang members.” “If you have a big business, they ask you for a thousand, two thousand, one hundred, two hundred dollars, depending on the business,” she explains.
“I sold all my things. I have nothing, nothing, nothing…” “In order to get out, you have to sell your things to be able to… because no one is going to lend you money either. No one is going to give it to you. “One has to sell one’s belongings in order to migrate,” says the woman, who has seen the journey as “difficult” but “not impossible.”
“God willing, I would like to be in the north,” adds the Ecuadorian, but her next goal is to reach Mexico City, to try to complete her paperwork with the Comar. “But if we can’t get to the north, we’re going to stay in Mexico City,” says the Ecuadorian who reached the goal she set herself a few hours ago.
“It’s almost time for zero, for Trump to arrive and it’s going to get difficult,” estimates the woman. “But we’re still suffering to be able to reach the goal,” but she recognizes that if things get complicated, then: “We’ll stay in Mexico.” But what she won’t do is return to Ecuador. “I have no turning back.” “Not at all.”
Source: eluniversal
