Bolivian boy who tried to find his mother ends up in Chile

10-year-old climbed into a container beneath transport truck thinking it would take him from Andean highlands to Cochabamba, where his mother was jailed Franklin Villca Huanaco ran away from home to be reunited with his mother but hid in a truck going the wrong way and wound up in a foreign country lost, frozen, ragged – and apparently successful. The 10-year-old clambered into a metal container beneath a transport truck thinking it would take him from Oruro in Bolivia’s Andean highlands to the city of Cochabamba, where his mother was jailed for three and a half years for transporting chemicals to make cocaine. Instead he emerged two days and 620 miles later on Chile’s Pacific coast. Famished and disoriented, wearing only trousers, a pullover shirt and battered shoes, Huanaco wandered the streets of Alto Hospicio, a poor community just outside the city of Iquique. Three strokes of luck then supplied the story with a happy ending. The boy was taken in by a local woman, Margarita Valencia, who fed and looked after him along with her other children. Chilean state TV picked up on the tale and broadcast his heartfelt plea: “I wanted to see my mother.” Word reached his mother, Zenobia Huanaco, who it turned out had been released from jail a month ago and was working as a farm labourer near Cochabamba. Bolivia’s foreign ministry said she will be flown to Iquique where the Bolivian consul is waiting to help. “I’ve never been separated from my son until I went to jail,” she told the ATB television station. An emotional reunion awaits. “Franklin, my child, I’m here crying for you. Where have you gone, little one? I love you. You know that I was in prison and then in the fields and you told me ‘I am content with my papa,’” she said. The boy told Chilean TV he had been beaten at home by a 14-year-old brother. Chile’s National Service for Minors said Huanaco would remain with his adoptive family until being handed over to his mother. A final piece of luck may be in the offing: with the story streaking across the internet mother and son could, if well advised, milk the media. Bolivia Chile Rory Carroll guardian.co.uk

Posted by on May 12, 2011. Filed under News, Politics, World News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.