Iconic Chicano artist Salvator Barajas paints a cross on Chicano Park Day to raise funds for Hugo Castro’s medical expenses. Barajas painted a mural that was inspired by the efforts of the nonprofit immigrant rights organization Border Angels as well as the famous Founders Wall in Chicano Park. Photo by Chelsea Pelayo
Immigrant rights activist Hugo Castro has been transferred from Mexico City to a San Diego hospital where he is receiving medical treatment for severe injuries linked to a mysterious five-day disappearance. Castro was found in Tlalnepantla, Mexico with multiple head wounds and possible brain damage. There are still no details on what caused these injuries.
His sister Noemi Castro updated supporters on the “Evacuate and Heal Hugo Castro” GoFundMe page set up to help cover his medical bills.
“Hugo appears to have been the victim of a serious and violent crime,” she wrote. “He has sustained severe injuries and remains in critical condition. We are unable to release further information at this time, as we believe his life is still at risk and ask that the public refrain from speculation.”
Noemi Castro said the page has thus far raised 67 percent of the $25,000 goal. Funds have reportedly gone towards the cost of paramedic transportation from Mexico City and the ongoing cost of medical attention. To make a donation visit: https://www.gofundme.com/bringhugohome
Hugo Castro is the volunteer coordinator for Border Angels, a San Diego nonprofit organization that provides assistance and advocacy for migrants and deportees. He was on his way to Queretaro, Mexico to join a caravan escorting asylum seekers on their dangerous trek from Central America to northern Mexico. Border Angels founder Enrique Morones said the organization has a long history organizing and participating in caravans to raise awareness. This one was different.
“We led 10 international Marcha Migrantes starting in February of 2006, which helped spark the national marches of the immigrant spring that same year,” he wrote on the Border Angels’ official Facebook page. “That is why Hugo suggested we join ‘via cruces.’ He volunteered to shuttle a car from Sonora to Mexico City to help prepare for the caravan. All seemed normal the first few days until that haunting Facebook video (4/13) from the side of a road in Puebla.”
News of Castro’s disappearance spread widely and garnered global attention after he broadcast a chilling Facebook Live video desperately pleading for help. It was recorded on the shoulder of a freeway leading to the city of Puebla in central Mexico. Castro detailed his location and claimed he was being threatened by a criminal organization. Soon after his cellphone battery ran out.
“They want … they want to kill me.” he said. “The people who are nearby here on the road to Puebla leaving the city in the State of Mexico – the division between the State of Mexico and Mexico City.”
The National Human Right’s Commission reported that the number of people missing under suspicious circumstances in Mexico rose to 30,000 by the end of 2016. Castro’s partner Gabriela “Gaba” Cortés alluded to the 43 students in Ayotzinapa who disappeared in the Mexican state of Guerrero, along the Pacific coast. Police forces were implicated in that incident. None of the students or their remains have been found.
“In a country filled with disappearances we will not let Hugo Castro be one more,” she wrote in a Facebook post. “We are missing Hugo and we are missing the 43 and everybody else.”
Castro was interviewed by the Southwestern Sun earlier this year about a new Border Angels Adopt-a-Shelter program meant to provide ongoing funding for each of the 20 shelters Border Angels currently supports. Adopt-a-Shelter is a program that launched out of S.O.S. Migrante, a Facebook-based movement to promote awareness of the increased needs for donations, food and volunteer efforts to aid the intensifying refugee crisis along the U.S.-Mexico border.
Morones actively worked with the U.S. embassy to bring Castro back to San Diego.
“We’re really excited about those news because that means he’s doing better,” he said. “We still don’t know what happened. The important thing is that we do know that he’s hurt and we need to help him.”
