Daniel was 15
Mansor Radja is a full-time volunteer with ATD Fourth World in a country in Central America, where he works alongside young people grappling with street violence in places where death can be just around the corner. A death that can plunge families into even more crushing pain, a pain that they find themselves obliged to hide in an attempt to protect their surviving bonds with those closest to them when the world is tearing itself apart around them.
Daniel’s dead. When I found out that Saturday it was a shock. Even if I had sensed that this could happen, I could never have imagined it. He was fifteen. When they came to get him late on Tuesday evening he was ill, with a fever. Yet he still agreed to go with them. He never came back.
He was always getting involved with dodgy types, Daniel. Those that killed him were no exception. He was no angel himself. Volunteers and friends of the family had known Daniel since he was a kid. We had been with his mother as she faced each new trial – when he was sent to a centre for street children, when his father died, run over by a lorry, the murder of two of his sisters…
She stumbles when she sees photos of her dead son. They are at the morgue. After several days of anxious waiting for news, Daniel’s mother, accompanied by Paul, a friend, has decided to go there – to find out one way or another. At the morgue they tell her that her son’s body has just been taken to the cemetery and she has just an hour until he is due to be buried. They rush to the cemetery but it’s already too late. The grave is there – with no name, just the letters XX to identify him. Paul engraves Daniel’s name on a piece of marble he finds on the ground and places it on the grave.
His mother tells us that she wants to give her son a decent burial – to lay him to rest next to his father and one of his sisters. But organising his exhumation and re-burial is a complicated process, a painful process. She will need a lawyer, which means that she will need money. She will also have to say that she doesn’t recognise her son from the photos so that they have to exhume his body for its formal identification. In other words, she will have to lie. She has to face the authorities alone. No one can accompany her in this trial – no one can be there to support her – it’s against the regulations. She has to look at the photos of her dead son one more time, to face the pain again. Then she tries to lie. But the authorities are not stupid. They know only too well that she has recognised her son without a shadow of a doubt. That’s why they can’t permit the exhumation and Daniel will not be able to lie with his closest family for another six years. The law of this country forbids it. Six years.
He was always getting involved with dodgy types, Daniel. Those that killed him were no exception. He was no angel himself. Volunteers and friends of the family had known Daniel since he was a kid. We had been with his mother as she faced each new trial – when he was sent to a centre for street children, when his father died, run over by a lorry, the murder of two of his sisters…
She stumbles when she sees photos of her dead son. They are at the morgue. After several days of anxious waiting for news, Daniel’s mother, accompanied by Paul, a friend, has decided to go there – to find out one way or another. At the morgue they tell her that her son’s body has just been taken to the cemetery and she has just an hour until he is due to be buried. They rush to the cemetery but it’s already too late. The grave is there – with no name, just the letters XX to identify him. Paul engraves Daniel’s name on a piece of marble he finds on the ground and places it on the grave.
His mother tells us that she wants to give her son a decent burial – to lay him to rest next to his father and one of his sisters. But organising his exhumation and re-burial is a complicated process, a painful process. She will need a lawyer, which means that she will need money. She will also have to say that she doesn’t recognise her son from the photos so that they have to exhume his body for its formal identification. In other words, she will have to lie. She has to face the authorities alone. No one can accompany her in this trial – no one can be there to support her – it’s against the regulations. She has to look at the photos of her dead son one more time, to face the pain again. Then she tries to lie. But the authorities are not stupid. They know only too well that she has recognised her son without a shadow of a doubt. That’s why they can’t permit the exhumation and Daniel will not be able to lie with his closest family for another six years. The law of this country forbids it. Six years.
