MEXICO CITY: The father & daughter lie facedown in the muddy water along the banks of the Rio Grande, her tiny head tucked inside his T-shirt, an arm draped over his neck.

The portrait of desperation was captured on Monday by journalist Julia Le Duc, in the hours after Oscar Alberto Martinez Ramirez drowned with his 23-month-old daughter, Valeria, as they tried to cross from Mexico to the US. The image represents a poignant distillation of the perilous journey migrants face on their passage north to the US, & the tragic consequences that often go unseen in the loud & caustic debate over border policy.

It recalled other powerful & sometimes disturbing photos that have galvanised public attention to the horrors of war & the acute suffering of individual refugees & migrants. Like the iconic photo of a bleeding Syrian child pulled from the rubble in Aleppo after an airstrike, or the 1993 shot of a starving toddler & a nearby vulture in Sudan, the image of a single father & his young child washed up on the Rio Grande’s shore had the potential to prick the public conscience.

The young family from El Salvador — Martinez, 25, Valeria & her mother, Tania Vanessa Avalos — arrived last weekend in the border city of Matamoros, Mexico, hoping to apply for asylum in the US. But the international bridge was closed until Monday, officials told them, & as they walked along the banks of the river, the water appeared manageable.

The family set off together around mid-afternoon on Sunday. Martinez swam with Valeria on his back, tucked under his shirt. Avalos followed behind, on the back of a family friend, she told government officials. But as Martinez approached the bank, carrying Valeria, Avalos could see he was tiring in the rough water. She decided to swim back to the Mexican bank.

Back on the Mexico side, she turned & saw her husband & daughter, close to the American bank, sink into the river & get swept away. On Monday, their bodies were recovered by Mexican authorities. “It is very unfortunate that this happens,” President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador of Mexico said on Tuesday.

Recent weeks have brought home the dangers along the border, although none quite as graphically as the death of Martinez & Valeria. On Sunday, two babies, a child & woman were found dead in the Rio Grande Valley, overcome by the searing heat. A toddler from India was found dead in Arizona earlier this month. & three children & an adult from Honduras perished when their raft overturned two months ago while crossing the Rio Grande.

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