Relatives of Salvadoran family slain in Georgia crash left reeling from tragedy

TEPETITAN El Salvador AP Parents siblings aunts nephews and other relatives of a Salvadoran family of eight who died in the fiery crash of a semitrailer and a van in Georgia this week struggled to wrap their minds around the tragedy on Wednesday as they hoped that the bodies of their lost loved ones would soon be repatriated to the Central American nation The family died on the way to shop at a local mall on Monday afternoon when a tractor-trailer collided with their van according to law enforcement Their van burst into flames and killed -year-old Maribel Ram rez and her five children Justin Andy Natali Evan and Kenia who was three months pregnant The crash also claimed the lives of Kenia s husband Darwin and her -year-old son Preponderance in the van were children Georgia State Patrol arrested the driver of the tractor-trailer -year-old Kane Aaron Hammock and he was charged with eight counts of second-degree vehicular homicide and one count of second-degree feticide by carriage Franka Young a spokesperson for the Georgia Department of Citizens Safety commented in an email Tuesday afternoon Hammock has also been charged with counts of following too closely no registration and failure to exercise due care Meanwhile relatives back home in the small Salvadoran town of Tepetitan was left reeling from the loss of a family who built a life in the United States after Maribel migrated nearly two decades ago It s something painful that we re living through explained Carmen Gavidia Ram rez Maribel s sister I couldn t believe it when they called us Monday night to tell us they had died I still can t believe it it can t be true but it is Gavidia whose eyes were still red from tears commented she learned of the crash when she got a call from one of her brothers who also lives in Georgia She could feel a pit in her stomach like she knew something bad had happened she revealed Maribel was the oldest of her siblings and the first to migrate to the U S from their -person town which sits nestled next to a volcano and sugar cane fields stretching along the San Vicente department in the center of El Salvador Gradually she brought her four brothers and her daughter Kenia who was years old at the time of the crash My sister Maribel left the way various Salvadorans do She worked here as a day laborer and one day she explained I want to go and she took off Gavidia remembered She clutched a graduation photo of Kenia as a proudly posing child which still hangs in a wooden frame on the blue wall of their humble home Their -year-old mother lay resting in a hammock nearby shrouded by grief unable to speak about the death of her daughter Gavidia mentioned that since the news broke the family has received visits from friends in town and even funeral homes have come offering their services But I don t know what s going to happen she added They didn t know when or how they would recover the bodies She announced El Salvador s Foreign Ministry contacted them to express solidarity and offer help in the often arduous and costly process of repatriating the bodies and that her brother Rafael in the U S has been speaking with the ruling body to handle paperwork Though we don t know if it will cover all or only part of the costs she explained We don t know if they ll be able to bring them back because it costs around that s what we ve been explained A GoFundMe page started by a family friend to help with the cost of transporting and burying the eight family members had already collected over as of Wednesday night We are devastated read a post on the page dotted with photos of the family gathered expressing satisfaction around a Christmas tree AP journalist Kate Brumback in Atlanta contributed to this review Source