GUATEMALA CITY ( Associated Press) — Guatemalan migrant Juana Alonzo, who spent 7 years in pretrial detention in Mexico while trying to emigrate to the United States and was tortured by police and accused of kidnapping, returned to Guatemala on Sunday, where she was reunited with her family.
Alonzo could not stand such emotion and passed out in the arms of his father and aunts. She cried and hugged her family one day after being released by authorities in the Mexican state of Tamaulipas, where she was detained for 7 years.
“It’s easy to get into (the prison), but it’s difficult to get out,” said Alonzo, an indigenous Mayan Chub woman from the community of Santa Maria Ixtatán Huehuetenango, who explained that she was detained for not speaking Spanish well.
Upon her arrival, her relatives were waiting for her with typical ceremonial costumes to welcome her. After she greeted her family, the women who accompanied her performed a ritual for her: they took off the denim pants she was wearing and dressed her in a typical costume from her region.
Alonzo took advantage of her arrival to advocate for her fellow prisoners, where she said that many are in the same situation of innocence as her.
“We are not stone, we are not plastic; we are going to stay there without seeing the family. How sad,” she stated.
The woman indicated that she could not believe when they told her that she could finally get out of jail.
“What we want is justice,” said his uncle Pedro Alonzo when asked.
Mario Búcaro, the Guatemalan foreign minister who accompanied the migrant, explained that in addition to accompanying Alonzo, he will also be supported in his return to his community.
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