14ymedio, Havana, December 27, 2023 — On Monday, firefighters from the city of Brownsville (Texas) recovered the body of Cuban Alejandro Díaz Albert, 28, who drowned while trying to cross the Rio Grande to reach the United States. The rescue coordinator, Francisco Ponce Lara, told 14ymedio that the migrant had been reported missing by people who accompanied him.
The journalist Mario J. Pentón had been informed by one of the Cubans who accompanied Díaz Albert of his disappearance when he jumped into the river to try to hide from the U.S. Border Patrol. “When we were on the road to the river, the police on the U.S. side put their flashlights on us,” a woman said in an audio shared by the Pentón on his YouTube channel. “They began to speak in English, warning us that a migration van was coming for us from Saltillo (Coahuila) Mexico.
As she told Pentón, “they had to go down a ravine” to jump into the river. “At that moment it was everyone for himself.” Díaz Albert, “apparently didn’t know how to swim and sank.”
According to the rescue coordinator, the young man’s body was identified thanks to the papers he brought with him
According to the rescue coordinator, the young man’s body was identified thanks to the papers he brought with him. “The authorities are in charge of contacting the family, but I don’t know if contact has been made.”
Díaz Albert left behind a wife, a one-year-old daughter, his parents and his grandmother in Cuba. Pentón, who works for América TeVé, mentioned that the options for the family are the possibility of a humanitarian visa “so that some of them can come to the funeral and say goodbye.” However, “this procedure is carried out through local congressmen; for example, his parents or his wife could come.”
The other option, Pentón said, is to “cremate the body and send the ashes to Cuba,” a situation that the family is considering.
The rescue coordinator, Francisco Ponce, said that after recovering the body of the Cuban migrant, the authorities found another person dead on the banks of the Rio Grande at the junction of Tamaulipas Avenue and the Republic of Cuba.
Translated by Regina Anavy
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