Marco, Lucas Gámez’s father, spoke: “We say goodbye to him on the earthly plane, but we will carry him forever in our hearts”

“We were able to locate the lifeless body of my baby, Luquita. A very hard time, we never lost faith“We never lost hope,” said Gámez. “Right now is a time when I ask myself a lot of questions. “I know I’m not going to get answers,” he added.

Marco said that Lucas “was a child who talked a lot about Jesus Christ and I believe that one of the purposes of his life was to give faith and hope to people, especially in these 15 days when I noticed that many people in both Argentina and Venezuela, as in other parts of the world, were united in a movement of faith.”

“When we can go out and overcome this moment, or learn to live with this, I think we are going to try to be able to bring that same message that Luquita wanted of faith and hope to all people and to firmly believe that God is good and God exists,” he added, moved, in dialogue with C5N.

“We are going to give him a Christian burial or give him the honors he deserves,” Marco said. Lucas’ father thanked “all the people who supported us through social networks with their prayers, having faith” and also highlighted the work of the rescuers.

“They were here for 15 days with us, they were and are our family. They helped us under the harsh sun, the heat, the humidity. And well, I couldn’t do more than thank them because even though they were making a superhuman effort. They also put their lives at risk, they also have children, they have families,” he said in line with what he had revealed to Clarion one of the members of the rescue teams.

“We are going to try to continue helping here because that’s how I know Lucas would have wanted it. We have to say goodbye to him on this earthly plane, but carry him forever in our hearts and thoughts,” Gámez reflected.

Guillermo Arana Leyton, head of the operation in charge of the search for the child, in coordination with the Mérida firefighters, confirmed to Clarín late that they had found the child’s body: “About 40 minutes ago we took Lucas out lifeless. Very painful.”

Lucas had gone to spend the day on the beach – it was a holiday in Venezuela – at his uncles’ house in Caraballeda (La Guaira), which ended up being the epicenter of the tragic double earthquake that has so far left 3,685 dead, more than 16,000 injured and tens of thousands missing.

According to the reconstruction that the parents, Marco and Blanca Martínez, were able to make, based on the testimony of a survivor who saw him, Lucas and his uncle had gotten into the elevator of the building where the man lived, minutes before the earthquake started.

His parents’ hypothesis was that the child must have arrived at the apartment or could have stayed in the area of ​​the stairs and the hallway – he had gone up to the 3rd floor because the elevator did not stop on the 2nd – when the structure began to shake.

The parents maintained the hope of finding him alive because he had been found in the area. traces of body heat and Lucas’s cell phone. On Monday, the day that would have been Lucas’s birthday, a team of rescuers had performed a sound test with Blanca’s voice to try to detect any signal.