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By Azam Ahmed and Kirk Semple
MEXICO
CITY — The father and daughter lie face down in the muddy water along
the banks of the Rio Grande, her tiny head tucked inside his T-shirt, an
arm draped over his neck.
The
portrait of desperation was captured on Monday by the journalist Julia
Le Duc, in the hours after Óscar Alberto Martínez Ramírez died with his
23-month-old daughter, Valeria, as they tried to cross from Mexico to
the United States.
The image
represents a poignant distillation of the perilous journey migrants face
on their passage north to the United States, and the tragic
consequences that often go unseen in the loud and caustic debate over
border policy.
It recalled other
powerful and sometimes disturbing photos that have galvanized public
attention to the horrors of war and the acute suffering of individual
refugees and migrants — personal stories that are often obscured by
larger events.
Like the iconic photo of a bleeding Syrian child pulled from the rubble in Aleppo after an airstrike or the 1993 shot of a starving toddler and a nearby vulture in Sudan, the image of a single father and his young child washed up on the Rio Grande’s shore had the potential to prick the public conscience.
Like the iconic photo of a bleeding Syrian child pulled from the rubble in Aleppo after an airstrike or the 1993 shot of a starving toddler and a nearby vulture in Sudan, the image of a single father and his young child washed up on the Rio Grande’s shore had the potential to prick the public conscience.
As the photo
ricocheted around social media on Tuesday, Democrats in the House were
moving toward approval of an emergency $4.5 billion humanitarian aid
bill to address the plight of migrants at the border.
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