Cecilio J. Martínez Palma, Guatemalan Red Cross
“Without the help of the Red Cross, my Delmi would not have survived,” relates René Orlando Díaz, who left El Salvador eight months ago in search of the American dream.
René left El Salvador with his wife, Anna Delmi Rivas, and their two young children. They spent a little time in Guatemala and soon reached Tuxtla Gutiérrez in Mexico where René found an easy job that enabled to him to save a few dollars to cross the American border.
But his hopes vanished when 22-year-old Anna Delmi fell ill and had to be hospitalized with acute pancreatitis.
René had no resources and no family support, so he decided to return to his country. But when he reached the Guatemalan border, Delmi’s condition got worse and she had to be admitted to hospital. René took his children back to El Salvador, but came back to pick up his wife. That was when he asked the Guatemalan Red Cross to help transport her.
Countless Central Americans, mainly from El Salvador, Honduras and Nicaragua, with the same hopes and dreams as René and his family, don’t make it as far as the US. Their “American dream” becomes a nightmare. Red Cross volunteers are there to ensure they receive the care and medical treatment they need.
“Every month the Red Cross receives a number of requests for transport, mainly from Mexico to Nicaragua. Most of them are people without proper papers who try to cross over the Mexican border in search of a better life,” says Annabella Forgar de Roca, President of the Guatemalan Red Cross.
“Thanks to our humanitarian network in the region, we provide social services to people who really need it”, she adds.
A few weeks ago the Guatemalan Red Cross transported three persons from El Salvador, one from Nicaragua and one from Guatemala, all of whom had had one or both legs amputated. They had lost their balance and fallen when trying to board a train from Mexico to the United States, and lost one or both legs.
Such things happen daily on the long road to the ‘north’, and require a response, a logistical and humanitarian chain. The Red Cross Societies in Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras and Nicaragua work together on this difficult task. They all contribute their financial and technical resources but, above all, their human resources, their staff and volunteers whose sole watchword is to take the patients safe and sound to where they are going.
Before being taken to El Salvador, with tears in here eyes, Anna Delmi shook the hand of a Guatemalan Red Cross first aider and thanked him.
Related links:
Guatemala: appeals, updates and reports
Population movement and migration
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