On May 6, the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) announced that on May 5, agents assigned to the Del Rio Station recovered the body of a small child from the Rio Grande River.
On May 2, agents came across a husband and wife from Angola who had illegally crossed the Rio Grande River about one mile west of the Del Rio International Bridge.
The couple reported that their two boys, ages seven and nine, were washed away by strong river currents while attempting to cross into the United States.
In an attempt to locate the children, a Del Rio Station Boat Patrol unit was dispatched to the scene. The Foreign Operations Branch of the Del Rio Sector contacted law enforcement counterparts in Mexico for coordinated assistance.
Border Patrol agents apprehended the mother and father and processed them per CBP guidelines.
Mexican authorities discovered a child’s body matching the family’s description near the riverbank on the Mexico side of the Rio Grande on May 5. An adult man’s body was also discovered near the search area. The search for the other child is still ongoing.
In related news, in late April, The Dallas Express reported that Texas National Guard Specialist Bishop E. Evans went missing after jumping into the Rio Grande to rescue a pair of unlawful migrants struggling to swim across the river. The unlawful migrants were trying to cross from Mexico into the U.S. but seemed to be drowning, prompting Specialist Evans’ attempt to help them.
Following a thorough search by multiple agencies, Evans’ body was recovered three days later, on April 25.
Evans was a member of the border security initiative Operation Lone Star at the time of his death. Fellow Guardsman Sergeant Levy Womble described him as a great person. “He was unique. He was young,” Womble said at the service. “He was just going into who he was.”
