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* Alicia is the wife of Carlos Duván García Valbuena, a 21-year-old young man who was serving an 18-month sentence for aggravated theft The last place of confinement where he was was the San Mateo (Soacha) police station, where he became one of the victims of the fire of September 4, 2020 which began when a prisoner decided to set fire to a piece of cloth.
(Context: What happened on September 4 at the Soacha police station?)
Like other prisoners who arrived there, this man ransacked through various detention centers. He was in the District of Soacha, then in Ciudad Verde, he went to Ciudadela Sucre and finally to San Mateo. “On December 12 he had been locked up for a year,” said the woman.
He says that the treatment in all these places is inhumane and that the problems for visits and to deliver parcels are recurrent. “The lines are very long, sometimes they receive us, sometimes not, sometimes just a toilet paper or toothpaste. But the worst thing is the food, they say it’s hard and that it comes to them in bad condition ”.
The same thing happened in San Mateo where this prisoner was already serving about three months. “That is not even a police station, it is like a proper CAI in a house, there is only one cell and he was always stuck there with about 15 people on average.”
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The few times she was able to speak to him, she told him that the treatment by the police was terrible. “He told me that one day they were beaten and that they were taken out late into the cold when there were hardly any neighbors to notice. They even denied going to the bathroom because it was outside the cell. “
That day, September 4, she sensed that the same old thing was going to happen, that is, she would not be able to see her husband. However, she took a risk and went alone to the San Mateo station. He arrived at 12 m.
They had been promised that that day they would be allowed visits and receive parcels, but hours passed and there was no signal. “More families accumulated so everything got congested. When it was already 2:30 we began to approach to ask what had happened and, without any explanation, they told us that they were not going to let us do anything and that we would rather move away from the place “.
(Also read: ‘He managed to say: mom, don’t cry’: mother burned in fire)
Alicia was heartbroken and when she was about to leave, the visitors realized that a dim flame had ignited inside the cell they could see. “There we told them: my God, take them out because a tragedy can happen but they didn’t feel like it.”
Then, the woman says, the police made a kind of barrier for the relatives to leave until the prisoners were no longer visible. “That happened because the flame spread to the ceiling. We all got alarmed and started running. We asked them, we begged them to take them out, to help them but before they told us: let those gonorrhea die. It was after someone came very close to the cell that the flames grew, we know what they threw at them but that was very strange.
According to his account, during the fire there were more than 20 policemen. It coincides with other testimonies in which it is mentioned that the event coincided with a changing of the guard and with the request for more reinforcements. “But never to help because they always refused to open the cell door. They were burning I think for 20 minutes ”.
Alicia says that she couldn’t take it anymore, neither she nor the other families. “We all shouted, the neighbors, the shopkeepers arrived with fire extinguishers because the police did not have them. The agents did nothing to save them, before they told us to take off and they even hit a young woman who tried to get in to open the door ”.
(Don’t stop reading: This is the process for the death of 9 young people after a fire in a CAI)
When all those who helped were able to calm the flames it was too late. “There the police did stop that they were taking the prisoners out but there was nothing to do. They were already burned. I even saw a video of a young man crawling out and a policeman spraying him with a fire extinguisher. Why if it was already burned ”.
Alicia watched as her husband was dragged into an ambulance. “I knew that they had taken him first to the Cardiovascular, but that same day they transferred him to the Simón Bolívar hospital. He spent many days in an Intensive Care Unit (ICU), intubated, in very poor condition. Of course I found out about that many afterwards because the police had given the order not to give us any type of information ”.
He learned of his state of health when he managed to get a contact telephone number in the ICU. “They told me that he was very ill, what’s more, that he could die, that if he survived it was a miracle because his airway had been burned. He had third degree burns all over his body ”.
A medical document given to the young woman states: “Patient with thermal trauma due to gasoline combustion, with burns of 40 percent SCT and airway injury (…)”.
Alicia says that it took many days for the young man to regain consciousness and stop speaking incoherently. “The most serious thing is that when he half recovered, instead of giving him a house for jail, they took him to another hole that is the UPJ of La Despensa which are like large warehouses suitable for putting prisoners as in sheds ”.
This woman says that Carlos is in very poor health. “He continues with his bandages, he has no mobility in his legs, his skin has not regenerated, he had about 11 graft surgeries and even so they have him lying on the floor in a patio. He is sentenced to 18 months, he has already been 11, they should let him recover at home ”. This young woman says that in addition, the doctors told her that she had a bacteria that was transmissible and that she should be in an isolated room.
Alicia denounces that they are not allowed to see it and that the only thing she has been able to do is take her lunch to a parking lot where they receive it, supposedly, to deliver it to her. “It is inhumane that after what happened, he cannot know how he is. He will have to wash his clothes in there and he is bandaged ”.
Before breaking the law, Carlos worked loading and unloading trucks. “I don’t work, now I live with my dad and my baby, but every day I suffer for my husband. I have had to turn around a lot. Find money to buy diapers. We have few families and it has not been easy because everyone works ”.
Alicia knows that everyone who was in that CAI had made serious mistakes. “But I tell those who speak so harshly about us that tomorrow they accidentally make a mistake and end up in jail. What would happen if a family member, a child or a husband ends up being burned in this way. Nobody deserves to die like this ”.
CAROL MALAVER
SUBEDITOR BOGOTÁ
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