Missing ‘daughter’ returns 42 years after Hurricane David

In 2021, 42 years after losing three of her children to the rapids of the Yuna River and the winds of Hurricane David, Ana Josefa Díaz meets a long-haired mulatto woman living in Italy who she claims is her daughter. Other little brothers are also alive.

“We were in the middle of water when a volcano higher than this house took us. We didn’t see anything else and he took us. I once stood on the ground, and I put my hand over my face, and one of my daughters, clinging to me, said, Oh, mother! I never saw her or my other two children again.

Ana Josefa Díaz was 33 years old when the Yuna River, the country’s second largest and most important, swept her away for about 60 kilometers on Friday, August 31, 1979. It would have swallowed three of his four children. One saved her life in some bushes on the bank of a tributary, while her husband climbed a mango tree. He recently turned 62, father of his eight children, Don Ramon Delone, three of whom went missing (ages 11, 9 and 6), one died as an infant and three were born after the typhoon.

Suffering from hearing loss, osteoporosis and poor circulation in her legs, Doña Fefa, as everyone calls her, opens her doors to her zinc-roofed house on the banks of the Yuna River in a community in the province of Los Quematos, Monsieur Nouvelle. A journalist came unannounced to learn his story.

In the same town where they lost everything 43 years ago, he took off Dillon’s laundry gloves in a cacao plantation. A short, energetic and very kind old lady, He smiled and agreed to the number, with a new twist: the question of whether or not his children, Ramon Eugenio, Luisa Andrea and Rosenny Díaz Dilone, were alive.

Change history

Undaunted, resigned, Doña Fefa shows doubts, although she says so Mulatto they met in 2021 A restaurant in Bonao features similar features as Delone. “She is Indian like her father. He looks like him and his family, they are about the same age, about 50 years old.

A woman who lives in Maimon, another municipality of Monseñor Nouel He informed that the daughter is alive. He mentions (Louisa Andrea) who was 9 years old when the natural disaster struck, but who Married and lives in Italy. “They call her Esther, we met in a restaurant and she said she is my daughter, my eldest son is a doctor in America and the youngest is in the capital (Santo Domingo)”. He adds that Esther told him that she said nothing out of fear and that it was a soldier who pulled her from the river by her hair. He gave some details about it.

Telegram and DNA testing

Donna Fefa is technologically out of date, she has no telephone, radio or television (although she likes to watch the news), and Lack of financial resources to follow through and confirm the version.

He still believes in telegraphs broadcast on the radio, which is why “I always want to telegraph on Radio Santa Maria”, a Catholic station founded in 1956 in the province of La Vega. Part of Chibao.

Explaining that his telegram would be published in Liszt’s Diario newspaper, he ordered: “What I wanted was to call Ramon Eugenio Díaz DillonIf he is alive, I live in Los Quematos de Bonao. If he’s alive, he’ll appear where I am, and I’ll have to track him down. And Esther told Rosanny Díaz Dilone that “if she’s alive, I want to see her before I die.”

Three children survived her

While reviewing her adventures with the Liszt Diario team, Ms. Fefa walked from her home, crossed a pedestrian bridge over the Yuna River in Los Quematos, and pointed to the site of a large wooden house. It would be a refuge for David when Hurricane David blew through the river.

“We left our house and came to this place because it was safe. When the “erimalai” (tornado) came, two cripples like us were carried into the river.

He says the current dragged them away She managed to grab a stick She then boarded a boat that took her to Cotuí, Sánchez Ramírez province, about 60 kilometers away. The next day, the raft got stuck, and With dirty eyes, with torn clothes, He saw the two children as if he were hallucinating.

They are scared and don’t want to help her. “They don’t believe I’m human. After the disaster there was one person alive in the middle of the river.

They agreed to help her, tied sticks with vines and led her out with the help of a third party, who put her clothes and shoes on her and carried her until they took her to a house, where she was told to bathe and dress. Then took her to a polyclinic where she stayed for seven days.

They stopped the river from dragging me to Hatilo Dam, they were angels to me.

Dona Josefa, though seemingly complacent and impassive, says that in her dream she hears, The voice of a woman who sometimes calls her mother“It is very small and I have even seen it in front of my bed”.

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the river

He did not hold grudges. At his age, Ana Josefa Díaz still bathes in the Yuna River, in a less abundant area and accompanied by neighbors. He assures himself that he is not afraid of his current and says that the dreaded tributary is “afraid of me.”

Your faith

When she was in a boat in the middle of the river, hurt by blows received by the wind and tree branches, “a blue lamp came with me, which is still kept near my pillow. “It is God, it is not from men or from the government, but only God.” Her rescuers are always her. , will visit Julian Porfirio García, Almonte Mañón and Daniel, except for the latter who is ill in America.