He was just two: The short, silent goodbye of Isaías Duvelson

By Dominican Today
Published: August 2, 2025

El Seibo, Dominican Republic — In a nation so often battered by headlines, one of the quietest tragedies unfolded in the fields of Cañada Grande. The story began with hope—and ended in heartbreak.

Two-year-old Isaías Duvelson, missing since Saturday, July 26, was found dead one week later in a potrero—an open pasture near the home where he was last seen. He had been visiting family in the San Francisco–Vicentillo Municipal District, far from his home in Verón, La Altagracia. His disappearance prompted a massive search effort by Civil Defense, the National Police, firefighters, and volunteers who combed the terrain with growing urgency.

That hope, once bright, was extinguished on Friday, August 1, when his body was discovered in the brushland, not by headlines or drones, but by human hands that refused to stop searching.

We may never know the whole story of how he vanished. What we do know is this: Isaías was not just a case file or a viral post. He was a child—a soul. A life barely begun.

His mother spoke candidly of the economic desperation that had driven her and Isaías’s father to place their other children in the care of relatives while they searched for work. Isaías stayed behind—perhaps because he was the smallest, the most delicate, the one who still needed arms around him at night.

What does it mean when the most vulnerable are the easiest to lose?

What does it say about our world that it took a tragedy for so many to know his name?

To those who searched: thank you. To those who prayed: your prayers were not in vain. They wrapped around a tiny spirit now beyond the reach of this earth’s cruelties.

And to Isaías:
We are so sorry. Sorry, we didn’t get there in time. Sorry, the world was too distracted to hear your cry.
You were loved by people who never met you.
You were seen.

In the end, this story is not about how he died.
It’s about how he mattered.

Too often, I report stories like this as soon as they cross my path, hoping—praying—that they’ll end differently. That someone will recognize a photo, remember a detail, step forward. But more often than not, these stories end in silence and loss.

One wonders: how might this story have ended if Isaías’s family had received the financial aid they—and so many like them—so desperately need? What if the safety net had been wide enough, strong enough, real enough?

It takes a village to raise a child.
But it takes a government to make sure the village isn’t starving.