Breathe
By Adela Navarro Bello
The loss of a life transformed the lives of thousands of people through the humanity of Eddy Carrillo. The day his tragedy began, on June 1, 2019, he began what would be his greatest feat and achievement in favor of a society vulnerable to violence, governments that are oblivious to crime and insecurity, such as that of Tijuana, Baja California.
On that June day five years ago, his son, Erick Carrillo, disappeared. His family's safety violated, frustrated by the government's inaction and the incapacity of the justice authorities, Eddy Carrillo set himself a personal challenge: to find his son wherever he could, until he found him. Hope dictated to him in those early days the possibility of locating him alive, but that hopeful premise was diluted over the years when he was confronted with a terrible reality: the location of human remains and bodies in the search for his son.
He created the collective to find missing persons; he called it "Todos Somos Erick Carrillo" (We are all Erick Carrillo). He was looking for his son and found thousands of missing people. Exactly, according to his accounts, in five years Eddy Carrillo's collective has located 1,398 missing persons and 452 missing persons alive; he found his son on Sunday, December 1, 2024, in a clandestine grave in Tijuana.
The search that began in the ordeal of locating her son alive gave her peace five years later. In a clandestine grave she located the remains. A skeleton that still had the clothes in which the young Erick was seen for the last time; "a brown leather jacket," said the pained father, but at the same time with the peace of mind of finally knowing where his son was. The pilgrimage was over, the anxiety, the uncertainty. He finally achieved his goal, even though it was too late and a product of the insecurity and violence that prevails in Baja California and throughout Mexico. "For the first time, I do feel that I am Erick; we are calmer. I can sleep now, I can close my eyes," Eddy told Semanario ZETA, after reporting the location of his son's remains.
The Todos Somos Erick Carrillo collective has been one of the most fruitful in terms of results. In the face of incapable authorities, omissive and lacking commitment to search for the disappeared in this country, Mr. Eddy and those who collaborate with him in the collective have put time, money, effort and sweat, digging the earth in Baja California and other states of the Mexican Republic to locate the disappeared. They find them buried, half-buried, covered; sometimes complete and identifiable bodies, sometimes only bones and human remains.
In his own search, not only for the location of his son, but for peace, certainty and justice, don Eddy provided those conditions to many other families who, thanks to his work, found their lost ones.
Erick Carrillo didn't even live in Tijuana; he lived in Los Angeles, California, where he worked in construction. Every six months he visited Mexico to see his mother and those last days of May 2019 he had come to the border city not only to spend time with her, but also to support her with a remodeling in her home. On the night of May 30, he decided to go out and hang out with some of his childhood friends. They partied, from one place to another, until the young man disappeared.
Don Eddy organized a search, went to the authorities, requested DNA tests, the official inquiry into the whereabouts of his son and was confronted with the terrible reality: "In Baja California it was a ordeal to file a complaint; there was no one to advise you, there was no search commission, there was no victims' commission and unfortunately when we saw all this among the family and friends we mobilized. We held marches, we published his photo on social networks and that is how we were heard by the prosecutor's office. From there we began the search for Erick Carrillo in life and in the field".
But they did not locate him. They did find some of his belongings, such as his passport. Then about 60 people, including family and friends, got together to search for him; "we left everything to look for him, so we spent three months looking for him. In September we began to be joined by families of missing persons, as we received many calls through our social networks. The collective -which at that time did not even know what a collective was- became a pillar for those families, that's when we decided to expand the searches".
In the years of searching, Eddy Carrillo and the members of the collective have extended their journeys to other states and have even put their lives in danger. They have survived attacks, police harassment and harassment by officials from prosecutors' offices, who feel affected by the tenacity of the collective, the determination to continue the searches that no authority carries out due to their authority and responsibility. The threat - Eddy once said - does not intimidate them, it is a supply of adrenaline to go on.
Don Eddy Carrillo has been a leader among the searchers. The searcher father became the citizen who, together with other citizen victims, affected by insecurity and violence, has located thousands of people, most of them lifeless, but with their remains in their families and with the certainty of knowing the whereabouts of their loved ones. This commendable work for Eddy has reached a new stage. He said it with punctuality: that when he found his son, he would retire, he would pass on to others the baton of the search collective and would join the volunteering, to help others from the peace of having found his son, to whom he has dedicated heartfelt words:
"I don't know how to begin... there are so many things I would like to tell you: that we love you, that day after day we think of you, we look for you, we wait for you, we ask God to watch over you at every moment, to guide your steps, to protect you and bring you back home, to show us the way so that we can be together again.
"Our lives changed that June 1, 2019 when you were torn from our side; everything has changed completely in our lives, but mainly yours.... Since then we have been looking for you and fighting every day to find you.
"Every moment you are in our thoughts and hearts. I wonder where you are, how you are, if you are eating, if you are cold? Endless questions run through our minds, every minute is eternal and I know that mainly it is for you; I know that just as we care about you, you care about us. We love you Erick".
Finally, Erick has been located. And one man's odyssey to find his missing son ended; not with the desired results, but with the certainty and peace of mind that along the way he found thousands more and changed the lives of many.
The opinions expressed are the responsibility of the authors and are absolutely independent of the position and editorial line of the company. Opinion 51.
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