Illegal migration continues to leave fatal trails. Above, in the box, Junior Pascual Báez, a victim./FILE
Santo Domingo, DR
Baní once again occupies pages with tragic news headlines and notes on citizens’ repetitive and illegal migratory adventures.
Without even having recovered from the pain and suffering that nine families still carry as grief for the tragedy in Chiapas, Mexico, the shipwreck of a yacht between the Bahamas archipelago and Florida, United States, has already been reported, with at least six Banilejos dead.
For the moment, we know of the cases of Junior Pascual Baez, 49 years old, a resident of the Villa Real neighborhood, near the Boca Canasta community, located on the southern coastal strip of this city, and another young man, also from here, 19 years old, whose identity is unknown.
On the death of Pascual Baez, close relatives say that he left his widowed wife and four orphaned children who live in the United States, where Pascual had lived for 20 years, before deciding to come to the country to solve a problem he had with a farm.
His sister, Amparo, describes him as “an exemplary father, an excellent son and an adorable brother,” who lately lived off the real estate business here.
“He made small mortgages and small loans,” the grieving woman says.
“It was because he was such a good father that this happened to him, because he wanted to be reunited with his family after more than five years without seeing him. He didn’t deserve that death,” Amparo says, sobbing.
No official response
So far, Israel Baez, his nephew, and Amparo say that no authority has approached them to ask for information or tell them if any official steps are being taken to locate and bring their relative’s remains to the country.
A request to justice
Under a heartbreaking cry, Denia Santos, another sister of Pascual, asks justice to apprehend the organizer of this other tragic trip and make him pay for this crime.
FACTS
A perilous journey
The new route
Another citizen, Israel, told Listín Diario that the trip that Pascual boarded, with approximately 40 people, left on the route Santo Domingo-Bahamas, then Bahamas-Bimini (the latter, Bimini, is a chain of small islands that form the westernmost district of the Bahamas, 81 kilometers east of Mimi), and from there to Miami.