Son turns up - two days after his funeral

Two days after a family thought they had buried their son – he called to say he was alive and well.

The Garcia family in Mexico thought their 25-year-old son had become another migrant who drowned trying to swim the treacherous, fast flowing Rio Grande river in his bid to get to America.

But after the family buried what they thought was the body of Omar Garcia Escobedo, a factory worker and father of a 10-month-old boy, he called to say he was alive in the border city of Brownsville, Texas.

The stunned family said the would-be drowning victim should be granted temporary US residency and a work visa because of the mishap.

They also want US authorities to take back the body of the unidentified man they put in the ground and pay the £1,200 a funeral home charged them for the burial services.

Garcia Escobedo’s family were contacted by Starr County investigator on August 6 and told a man carrying a wallet containing his identification card had drowned while crossing the Rio Grande.

Garcia Escobedo’s father, who is also named Omar, his cousin and wife went to Starr County Sheriff’s department office in Rio Grande City and identified the body through photographs.

They held a funeral for him on Thursday and were still grieving when they received a telephone call from Garcia Escobedo on Saturday.

“He told me, ‘Mama I couldn’t call earlier because they robbed me and I couldn’t afford a phone card until now,”’ his mother, Margarita Escobedo, said.

Sandra Mendoza, a spokeswoman for the Mexican consulate in McAllen, Texas, said the body was not shown to relatives because it was badly decomposed. Identifying victims using photographs is standard operating procedure for drowning victims, she said.