Remembering Carlos Ernesto Escobar Mejia

Age 57, San Diego
Passed away on May 6, 2020

Carlos Ernesto Escobar Mejia had lived in the United States for four decades. Last week, he became the first person to die from Covid-19 in immigration custody.

Escobar Mejia, 57, came to the US as a teenager, having fled El Salvador after his brother’s murder during the war. He died on Wednesday in San Diego, after complaining for weeks that he was sick and that his history of diabetes, high blood pressure, heart problems and an amputated foot put him at high risk of succumbing to Covid-19 inside the Otay Mesa detention center.

“He was weak, he should have been released,” his sister Rosa Escobar told the Guardian. “They were refusing to take him to see a doctor. He was begging and screaming for medical attention. He was so scared.”

(Reporting by Sam Levin; read full story in the Guardian)

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