VOA慢速英语--父女溺水的图片引起了对移民风险的关注

Image of Father-Daughter Drowning Calls Attention to Migrants’ Risks

The bodies of a man and his 2-year-old daughter lay face down in the water along the bank of the Rio Grande, the river that runs between Mexico and the United States.

The young girl’s body is inside her father’s shirt; one of her arms falls around his neck. The position of their bodies suggests that the two held on to each other as they drowned.

The image of the father and daughter has called attention to the risks Central American migrants face while fleeing violence and poverty and hoping for asylum¹ in the United States.

Reporter Julia Le Duc took the picture. It was first published in the Mexican newspaper La Jornada and has since been seen around the world.

Le Duc said the people in the image were óscar Alberto Martínez Ramírez and his daughter, Valeria. The two were from El Salvador.

Le Duc reported that Ramirez had tried to cross the river along the U.S-Mexico border Sunday. He did so after he was unable to present his family to U.S. officials and request asylum.

Ramirez first swam across with his daughter and set her on the U.S. side of the river. As he started to return for his wife, Tania Vanessa ávalos, the daughter threw herself back into the water to try to reach her father. Ramirez returned and was able to grab² Valeria, but a strong current swept them both away.

Le Duc said her reporting was based on what ávalos told police at the scene.

Ramirez’s mother back in El Salvador, Rosa Ramírez, spoke³ with her daughter-in-law by phone after the incident. She told the Associated Press, “When the girl jumped in is when he tried to reach her, but when he tried to grab the girl, he went in further ... and he couldn’t get out.” The story was also confirmed Tuesday by a state government official in Mexico.

The search for Ramírez and his daughter was suspended⁴ Sunday evening. Their bodies were discovered the next morning near Matamoros, Mexico, across from Brownsville, Texas. They were several hundred meters from where they had tried to cross and just one kilometer away from an international bridge connecting the two countries.

From the extremely hot Sonoran Desert to the fast-moving Rio Grande River, the U.S.-Mexico border has long been a deadly crossing. Last year, 283 migrants died trying to cross the border.

In recent weeks, two babies, a small child and a woman were found dead in the heat. In April, three children and an adult from Honduras died after their small boat overturned⁵ on the Rio Grande.

Leaving El Salvador

Rosa Ramírez said her son and his family left El Salvador on April 3. “I begged them not to go, but he wanted to scrape⁶ together money to build a home,” she said. “They hoped to be there a few years and save up for the house.”

Mexican officials said the family arrived in Matamoros early Sunday and went to the U.S. Consulate⁷ to try to get a date to request asylum. But the waits are long at the consulate as well as at the border. Last week, a shelter director said the U.S. only holds about 40 to 45 asylum interviews in Matamoros each week. There is a waiting list of about 1,000 names.

Later that day, the family made the decision to swim across the river.

Le Duc said as she described the scene, “I was drawn⁸ to the girl’s arm on her father. It was something that moved me in the extreme because it reflects that until her last breath, she was joined to him not only by the shirt but also in that embrace⁹ in which they passed together into death.”

Maureen Meyer is with the human rights organization Washington Office on Latin¹⁰ America. She said of the image, “It speaks so clearly to the real risks of these U.S. programs that are either returning people back to Mexico seeking asylum or in this case limiting how many people can enter the U.S. every day.”

I'm Ashley Thompson.

Words in This Story

grab - v. to quickly take a hold of someone with your hand

sweep - v. to push or carry someone with great force

scene - n. the place of an event or incident

beg - v. to ask someone in a very serious and emotional¹¹ way

scrape - v. to collect or gather something needed or wanted with great effort

draw - v. to cause someone to to become interested in something

reflect - v. to show something

embrace - n. the act of holding someone in your arms

1 asylum   

n.避难所，庇护所，避难

参考例句：

• The people ask for political asylum.人们请求政治避难。
• Having sought asylum in the West for many years,they were eventually granted it.他们最终获得了在西方寻求多年的避难权。

2 grab   

vt./n.攫取，抓取；vi.攫取，抓住(at)

参考例句：

• It is rude to grab a seat.抢占座位是不礼貌的。
• The thief made a grab at my bag but I pushed him away.贼想抢我的手提包，但被我推开了。

3 spoke   

n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说

参考例句：

• They sourced the spoke nuts from our company.他们的轮辐螺帽是从我们公司获得的。
• The spokes of a wheel are the bars that connect the outer ring to the centre.辐条是轮子上连接外圈与中心的条棒。

4 suspended   

a.被暂时搁置的

参考例句：

• A lamp was suspended from the ceiling. 一盏吊灯悬在天花板上。
• The British government has now suspended humanitarian aid to the area. 英国政府现已暂停对这一地区的人道主义援助。

5 overturned   

adj. 倒转的 动词overturn的过去式和过去分词

参考例句：

• The car skidded and overturned. 汽车打滑翻倒了。
• When a bird's nest is overturned, no egg can remain intact. 覆巢之下无完卵。

6 scrape   

v.勉强维持；刮擦；n.刮，擦；刮擦声；困境

参考例句：

• We don't have much money but we scrape along somehow.虽然我们没多少钱，但是还可以过得下去。
• The high mountains seem to scrape the sky.峻岭摩天。

7 consulate   

n.领事馆

参考例句：

• The Spanish consulate is the large white building opposite the bank.西班牙领事馆是银行对面的那栋高大的白色建筑物。
• The American consulate was a magnificent edifice in the centre of Bordeaux.美国领事馆是位于波尔多市中心的一座宏伟的大厦。

8 drawn   

v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的

参考例句：

• All the characters in the story are drawn from life.故事中的所有人物都取材于生活。
• Her gaze was drawn irresistibly to the scene outside.她的目光禁不住被外面的风景所吸引。

9 embrace   

vt.拥抱；包括；包围，环绕；n.拥抱，怀抱

参考例句：

• He held her to him in a warm embrace.他热列地拥抱她。
• The hills embrace the village.山丘环绕着村庄。

10 Latin   

adj.拉丁的，拉丁语的，拉丁人的；n.拉丁语

参考例句：

• She learned Latin without a master.她无师自通学会了拉丁语。
• Please use only Latin characters.请仅使用拉丁文字符。

11 emotional   

adj.令人动情的；易动感情的；感情(上)的

参考例句：

• Emotional people don't stop to calculate.感情容易冲动的人做事往往不加考虑。
• This is an emotional scene in the play.这是剧中动人的一幕。