An eight-year-old boy who died after ingesting arsenic and other pollutants following a tumble into the Santiago River 15 years ago was remembered this week by NGOS and environmental activists.
Miguel Angel López Rocha was playing outside his house when he slipped into the El Ahogado canal, where it joins with the Santiago River, in the La Azucena neighborhood of El Salto, on the periphery of the Guadalajara metropolitan area.
He was in a coma for 19 days before he died on February 13, 2008.
Independent analysis of the river’s water concluded that the presence of contaminants contributed to the boy’s death, although state authorities have never admitted to that possibility. After weighing up different toxicological studies, the National Human Rights Commission (CNDH) concluded in 2010 that Lopez Rocha “presented acute arsenic poisoning derived from the serious state of contamination of the Santiago River.”
The Santiago River runs from Lake Chapala through the towns of Ocotlan, Poncitlán, El Salto and Juanacatlan, before skirting the northern outskirts of the Guadalajara metropolitan area through the Huentitan Canyon on its meander westward toward the Pacific Ocean.
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