When the coffin containing the body of 18-year-old Royer Pérez Jiménez was placed in the living room of the house he left three years ago, his father, Manuel Pérez, wanted to tell him that he wanted to embrace him upon his return, as he had promised, but he couldn’t utter a word. At that moment, he covered his face with his hands to hide his grief and tears.
Earlier, an elderly Tzotzil man from Rancho Narváez, the community Royer left three years ago driven by the desire to earn dollars to build his own house, dressed the young man’s body in the traditional clothing worn by the Chamula people for special ceremonies and placed a pok’il, a white headscarf, on his head. Crucifixes, votive candles, flowers, and a green cross with gold trim, used by the Chamula people in traditional ceremonies, were placed at the head of the coffin.
At 7:37 a.m. on Holy Thursday, a Suburban SUV arrived in the Noctic neighborhood of Rancho Narváez, carrying the body of the young Tzotzil man, after a 14-hour journey through seven states from the Toluca airport.
The Tzotzil people immediately gathered around the coffin, among them his mother and four of his younger siblings, who spoke briefly among themselves in Tzotzil. They seemed frightened to see their older brother lifeless.
The clear morning in the mountains of San Juan Chamula received the body of Royer, the young man who, at 15 years old, driven by the desire to earn dollars, decided to leave home and migrate to Florida, where he lived for more than a thousand days, working in a restaurant in Volusia County. On the night of January 22, he was arrested as he finished his shift.
That day, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) issued a detention order, placing him in their custody. However, he had to wait a month to be transferred to the Glades County Detention Center, from where he would call his father to tell him he wanted to return to San Juan Chamula.
Manuel Pérez Ruiz, namesake of Royer’s father, greeted visitors who came to the house where the young man’s body was being mourned. He said his nephew was healthy and that he didn’t use drugs or alcohol in Florida, so his family is convinced he was mentally sound and doubts he hanged himself.
He showed a document from the Federal Commission for Protection against Sanitary Risks (Cofepris), which states that Royer was declared dead on March 16 at 2:52 a.m., two days before he told his father by phone, from the Glades County Detention Center in Moore Haven, Florida, that he would sign his voluntary deportation to return home to Rancho Narváez.
What Royer’s family doesn’t understand is that the official document records the young man’s “cause of death” as “hanging.” “I don’t know if it was actually suicide or what happened; they only tell us: hanged.”
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The medical certificate issued by US authorities stated the same thing. “Similarly, in the section on the cause of death in this document, it states: hanged,” Manuel maintains. “The official autopsy report raises doubts for us, since they only list ‘hanged’ as the cause of death. It’s the only document we have that the funeral home brought with them when they transported the body.”
Thanks to a fundraising campaign launched in San Juan Chamula to repatriate Royer’s body from the United States, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (SRE) arranged to send the body to Chiapas, but so far no official has spoken with the family.
By midday on Thursday, dozens of men and women had arrived to say goodbye to Royer, with flowers and candles. The family offered their friends and relatives small glasses of aguardiente, as is the custom.
Source: eluniversal
