Bodies of Salvadoran father and daughter return home for burial
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The corpses of a Salvadoran father and his 23-month-old daughter, whose bodies lying face down in the Rio Grande became symbols of the perils of illegal immigration to the United States, have been returned to their homeland El Salvador for burial today.
Oscar Martinez, 25, and his daughter Angie Valeria together with the rest of his family had left El Salvador in April, hoping to find work in the United States. But their dream unravelled a week ago when they tried to cross the river that separates northeast Mexico from the United States.
Travelling in a convoy of government vehicles and white vans from a funeral home, the bodies of the drowned migrants left Mexico for El Salvador, where they are due to be buried on Monday.
Tania Avalos, mother of the Salvadorian girl Valeria that died with her father Oscar Martinez at the Rio Grande river trying to arrive to USA, arrives from Mexico to the Oscar Romero International Airport in San Luis Talpa, El Salvador. Photo: EPA-EFE/Rodrigo Sura
The family will hold a private funeral service in La Bermeja cemetery in San Salvador on Monday.
The searing image of the prone Martinez with the toddler tucked under his black t-shirt shocked the world and drew comparisons to a 2015 photo of Aylan Kurdi, a three-year-old Syrian refugee, whose body washed up on the shores of the Mediterranean.
