Fleeing Threats in Her Country, She Ended Up Dying in the Arizona Desert: The Tragic Story of the Colombian Woman Who Tried to Cross the United States Border with Her Children

At 37, Claudia Marcela Pineda he was both father and mother. She lived alone in Tunja (Boyacá), and after losing her job, she decided to go on a trip with her children María José Sánchez and Kristhyan Pineda -11 and 2 years- from Colombia to the United States to provide them with better opportunities. However, what started as the dream of a better future ended in tragedy.

“Please help me, I will pass out”, were the last words of this Colombian mother before she and her daughter died amid the high temperatures of the Arizona desert, which can even reach 48 degrees Celsius.

Hours earlier, according to relatives of Pineda, the 37-year-old had last contacted them around 6 a.m. (Colombian time). Claudia had spoken with her husband, Hugo pinzon, who was waiting for her and the two little ones in the United States, and with another close person who was also aware of her trip.

“Supposedly, she was going to a place where they were going to drop her off at the border and there she would wait for the migration to pass. But he never told me that he had to cross a desert (…). I’m sure she didn’t know, because if she did, she wouldn’t have risked the children that way, ”a relative of Pineda told El Tiempo newspaper.

Apparently, the trip didn’t go as Claudia had planned, and the coyote (smuggler) who was supposed to help her cross the border to the United States abandoned her and her two children.

Claudia Marcela, a “courageous and fighter” woman

Claudia Marcela Pineda Sarmiento was born in Tunja, Boyacá, into a dysfunctional family. Like his father, Manuel Guillermo Rodríguez was absent and his mother, Claudia Marcela Pineda Sarmiento, He devotes himself solely to the work of his farm in Tibaná, since she was little she has to workThis is how the local newspaper, El Diario, found out.

At 26, still devoted to work, she landed a job in a Tunja stationery store, while working nights as a waitress in a bar. During this time I would meet daddy of his daughter Maria José, who recognized her only by legal means, and as happened to her in her childhood, the man would not be present in her daughter’s life.

Since then, Claudia, being both mother and father, has had several jobs, in paper mills or bars, in order to keep her and María José afloat.

“When I met my wife, I fell in love with her because she was the most warrior woman in the world. She had three jobs when I met her so that I could raise her daughter on her own,” said said her husband, Hugo Pinzón, in an interview with the newspaper El Tiempo.

The couple met in 2013, at the bar of the Zaragoza Club, in Tunja, where they both worked. At that time, Claudia had three jobs, from 7:00 p.m. to 5:00 a.m. she worked in the bar, from 9:00 a.m. to 11:00 a.m. in a cafeteria and then until 4:00 a.m. later he worked in a restaurant. “She was courageous and a fighter”Pinzón provided the same medium.

After a month and a half of relationship, Claudia and Hugo decided to move in together, until 2019. Pinzón decided to travel to the United States because of the threats he received against himApparently, after an altercation he had while working at La Topa Tolondra bar, where after asking some customers to leave the premises, he found himself stabbed and they attempted to incriminate him for theft. , that’s how the newspaper El Diario learned.

For fear of an attack on his life, on January 17, 2019, Hugo left for the country of North America. Before leaving Colombia, he said goodbye to Claudia, who because of this meeting became pregnant with her second child, Kristhyan Pineda.

Claudia and her children’s road to the United States

After giving birth to Kristyan in 2019, Claudia continued to work in informal jobs and despite Hugo sending her money from the United States, the 37-year-old mother’s financial situation deteriorated. With the onset of the pandemic, the stationery store where he worked closed, and although he got another job at a restaurant, he resigned due, apparently, to mistreatment of his boss, as reported by him. learned El Tiempo.

In the midst of the difficulties, as El Diario learned, the last straw came on July 27, 2021, when a man approached Claudia and pointed a gun at her, questioned her about her husband’s whereabouts. She only replied that he had left the country. It was then that Pineda decided that she and her two children would leave Colombia.

August 21, Claudia, Maria José and Kristyan left from El Dorado airport in Bogotá for Mexico, for Tuesday, August 24, to go to Tijuana (Mexico) also by plane.

“Me dijo que iba a estar en la casa de una amiga de la mamá de Hugo Pinzón, el 21 de Agosto viajó a México at 1:30 pm, salió del aeropuerto a media noche porque Migración la detuvo un tiempo, estuvo en México two days; On August 24, he went to Tijuana around noon and contacted again around 9:00 pm and told me that he had already arrived in Mexicali ”, said Pineda’s best friend Tatiana Barajas Ávila, according to La Vanguard newspaper. .

The next day, August 25, Claudia contacted her best friend and told her that she was already starting her trip to the North American country and that they could not be reached. “She told me that she was going to leave and that she was being held incommunicado but that when she left she would communicate with me again “Barajas said to the same medium.

The plan, as Hugo Pinzón told El Tiempo, was that she and her children would go to the border with the United States, where she would wait to meet with immigration officials, to whom she would show their papers. asylum.

But things didn’t go as planned, the coyote who was going to take them to the border abandoned them in the middle of the road. Without knowing the route and with a 3% battery, Claudia called 911 for help.

Claudia: “Please help me.”

Operator: “How many people are with you? “

Claudia: “Two children, please help me, I’m going to pass out.”

María José: “Mom, I’m hungry.”

Claudia: “Already my love.”

Operator: “Do you have WhatsApp? “

Claudia: “Yes, sir.”

Operator: “I just sent you a message” is heard in the call that is cut off after Claudia’s cell phone runs out of battery.

Although the authorities found them early, it was too late. The bodies of Claudia and María José were found in the desert area of Levee Road and County. According to Semana magazine, the causes of death are believed to be due to dehydration and exhaustion caused by high temperatures.

Kristyan, the two-year-old boy, has managed to survive and now his father, Hugo Pinzón, demands that the American authorities give him custody of the minor, for which he will have to take a DNA test.

“It was a miracle of God, of life, because my wife gave her life to bring the little one, my son, to know me. I still don’t know him in person, ”said Pinzón in an interview with Noticias Caracol.

Regarding Claudia Marcela and María José, Hugo told the press that a request has already been made so that their bodies can be cremated in the United States, then he will send the ashes to Colombia so that Pinzón’s relatives can tell him in review. the girl.

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