the tragedy that cost the lives of 16 migrants in Nicaragua

One of the images that Jefferson Soler, a 16-year-old Venezuelan migrant who survived the tragedy that killed at least 13 more of his compatriots in Nicaragua, including his mother, has in mind was that the bus in which he was traveling was going around without Control until you fall off a cliff and hit a tree.

Soler left Caracas a little more than 20 days ago, along with his family of six: him, his mother, his father, his 13-year-old sister, his aunt and a cousin.

“We planned to travel to the United States. We went through the Darién jungle and the only thing my mom told me was that if she fell, we should keep going, ”said the young man via Skype to the Voice of America.

The family felt motivated to get closer and closer to their goal. “We were already close to Honduras and Mexico, to finish achieving almost the last mission to get all together and be with family, but unfortunately everything turned out that way.”

The young man remembers that after the accident, he tried to help get his mother off the bus, but the place was dark and she finally died in his hands.

According to him opinion of the National Police, The incident occurred on the North Pan-American Highway, in Nicaragua, around 6:30 in the afternoon in a curvy area, known as “La Cucamonga”, in the department of Estelí, located northeast of the capital.

The opinion also reveals that the bus driver, identified as Alfredo Antonio Palma, 46, was directing the migrants at excessive speed from south to north, colliding with two cars.

In the accident 16 people died, 13 of them were Venezuelans. Within that list was the mother of Jefferson Soler, Dalia Elena Soler Cortez, 37 years old, but her sister survived, who says that she is her motivation to continue.

“I thank the Lord because my sister is fine, I am going to take care of my mother and I will try to fulfill her wishes. She told us to promise that when we arrived in the United States we would study something with the purpose of being someone in life, taking care of each other being a united family, ”the young survivor said crying.

I saw death with my eyes

Leonardo Cortés, 24, is another survivor of the accident. He says that he, along with another group of Venezuelans, entered Nicaragua about four days ago with the same goal: to reach the United States.

“The intention was to get to Jalapa to cross into Honduras and from there follow the countries until they reached the United States.”

But the accident marked his life even in a surprising way, because he was afraid of other more risky places such as crossing the Darién jungle, but he never thought that the worst would happen in a traffic accident in Nicaragua.

“See death with the eyes. That is very hard. The bus driver was going at a very high speed. The bus had many passengers, about a hundred people. Many people were standing. When we went, I felt the cliff and we started rolling and rolling, and a tree cut us off. The first thing I see is people screaming with all the lights off,” Cortés said.

The 24-year-old man comments that he will also continue on his way to reach the US, although first he wants to cremate the body of his aunt who died in the accident.

“We must continue forward, hitting it with our nails to get there because we have nothing behind us. We sold everything to be able to make this trip.”

Government of Nicaragua without supporting the repatriation of bodies

Most of the survivors are relatives and have asked for financial support to first be able to defray the funeral expenses; but also to continue their journey to the United States.

The Nicaraguan government, through the spokeswoman and vice president Rosario Murillo, issued a message of solidarity and condolences to the families of the victims at noon on Thursday and stressed that they are “waiting for contacts with the Venezuelan government” to know their provisions. At the moment it did not inform if they have any plan to support the victims.

“Commander Daniel greets all the families and of course we are expressing from the Presidency, our solidarity, condolences, condolences, to the families who were victims of irresponsibility when driving a serious, tragic accident that are precisely those that we must avoid, avoid the pain of families,” said the state spokeswoman.

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