Representative image of a dead body.
Credit: iStock Photo
Ahmedabad: A man from north Gujarat’s Sabarkantha district died in Nicaragua while travelling to the United States via an illegal route.
The man has been identified as Dilip Patel, a resident of Moyad village of Sabarkantha district. A diabetic, Patel was travelling with his wife and child. On the way, he fell sick and slipped into a coma due to lack of medication and passed away.
The family was on their way to the US through the illegal ‘dunki’ route.
“I don’t know what exactly happened but I have come to know that a person from Moyad village, who was trying to go to the US, passed away. I don’t have any further details,” village sarpanch Dhanrajsinh Rathod told the media. He added, “People have been talking about it a lot.”
His family back home has been tightlipped about the incident and so are the villagers. When reporters asked Lakshmiben Patel about her son, Dilip, and his family, she refused to say anything.
She kept repeating, “I don’t know anything.” Local sources said the family attempted to go to the US by selling their land to pay the agents.
They said about two months ago, the family had left for Dubai on a tourist visa and then proceeded to Nicaragua. In the Central American nation, Dilip, who was a diabetic, fell sick and due to a lack of medicines, slipped into coma and passed away, leaving his wife and child stranded.
‘No complaint yet’
When asked if the police have taken any cognizance of the incident, Sabarkantha SP Vijay Patel told DH, “We have not received any communication or complaint. We came to know about it only through the media.”
This is not the first such incident. In 2022, four members of a family, including two children, from Dingucha village in Gandhinagar district froze to death on the Canada-US border while trying to reach the US illegally.
In the same year, Brijkumar Yadav, 36, fell to his death while trying to scale the 30-m metal wall on the Mexico-US border also known as the Trump Wall. He was from Kalol in Mehsana district.