Aerial view of the wreckage of Voepass Flight 2283 in Venhedo, Brazil – Copyright AFP Nelson ALMEIDA
Lucia LACURCIA
When Josgleidys Gonzalez boarded Voepass Flight 2283 with her four-year-old son and her mother, she had embarked on a long journey that would take her to her home country of Venezuela and then on to Colombia.
But her dreams and those of everyone else on board were shattered when the plane crashed in the Brazilian state of São Paulo this week.
The family, who had emigrated to Brazil, were among the 58 passengers and four crew members on the plane that crashed into the sky and burst into flames in the city of Vinhedo on Friday. All of them died.
Gonzalez was 25 and her baby Joslan was just a few months old when they arrived in Cascavel, a city of 350,000 in the southern state of Parana, four years ago.
There she found work as a supermarket cashier, her Brazilian friend Thaiza Evangelista told AFP.
The Gonzalezes were among the 7.7 million people who have fled Venezuela in recent years, according to the UN count, as the country struggles with a series of political and economic crises.
However, life in Brazil was too expensive for the family, so after a short stop in Venezuela to complete the paperwork, they decided to move to Colombia.
“They had friends (in Colombia) and would not have had to bear any accommodation costs, because here the rent is the most difficult thing,” says 52-year-old Evangelista, who helped the family with the final travel preparations.
– “One final message” –
As an animal lover, she had persuaded her friend to bring her six-month-old dog Luna – and had even collected money to cover the additional costs.
This was partly done for the sake of young Joslan, she said, who “cried all the time because he didn’t want to leave her behind.”
Evangelista had helped them put together a complicated travel plan: They would first fly to Sao Paulo, then take another plane to Boa Vista in the north, before riding in a van to the border town of Pacaraima – and finally taking a 12-hour bus ride to their hometown of Ciudad Bolivar in Venezuela.
“She sent me a final message at 11:16 a.m. (2:16 p.m. GMT) saying everything was fine and they were about to board the plane,” Evangelista said.
But later, to her dismay, she received text messages about the crash of a plane bound for Sao Paulo.
“I was desperate … the list (of victims) was not made public,” she said by phone from Cascavel, where her friends and neighbors had gathered upon hearing the tragic news.
Brazilian airline Voepass later confirmed that among the passengers on Flight 2283 were Josgleidys Gonzalez and her son, her mother Maria Gladys Parra and her dog Luna.
– “A Warrior” –
Josgleidys Gonzalez was “a fighter,” her friend said, adding: “She was very popular. It is very difficult to maintain your kindness, your honesty and your integrity when you have been through so many difficulties.”
Neirelis Orta, a 33-year-old Venezuelan who also emigrated to Brazil and has lived in Cascavel since February, worked with Gonzalez at the supermarket.
“She had saved up to get papers for her son in Venezuela,” Orta told AFP.
“It makes me very sad to miss out on so many things, to give up something to eat or to buy a piece of clothing that you like because you have a plan, a trip, and then the dreams end like this…
“We are devastated and keep saying she didn’t deserve this. She was full of hopes and dreams.
“It’s just terrible.”
