The two young men were as excited for their voyage to the U.S. as they’d been when they were children looking forward to a celebration.

Instead, they met their deaths.

Two young Hondurans were among the 53 migrants who died after having been inside a sweltering tractor-trailer rig abandoned in San Antonio.

Karen Caballero told Telemundo News that her sons, Fernando José Redondo Caballero and Alejandro Miguel Andino Caballero, had been eager about going north to find work.

“They were so excited to do the trip. Every day, they asked me, ‘Mom, when are we going to go?’” Caballero said, her eyes swollen with tears. “It was as if they were going to a birthday, like when they were little: ‘When is the birthday, Mami?’”

Their search for better lives ended tragically Monday. The Honduran government confirmed the siblings were among the deceased.

They were discovered inside the tractor-trailer rig on a torrid afternoon when nearby workers heard pleas for help.

Alejandro was the most eager about the prospect of working and fulfilling a dream for their mother: They wanted to buy her a home.

Image: People place flowers and candles at a makeshift memorial where a tractor-trailer was discovered with migrants inside, outside San Antonio, Texas, on June 29, 2022.
People place flowers and candles Wednesday at a makeshift memorial where a tractor-trailer was discovered filled with migrants outside San Antonio. Chandan Khanna / AFP – Getty Images

“It was funny, because they said, ‘Mami, when we’re there we’ll buy you a casita [home],’ and I said, ‘I won’t need a casita, because you won’t be here,'” she told Noticias Telemundo in an interview.

But she gave them her blessing to look for better pastures far from her.

“I hope you triumph,” she said she told them, mimicking a mother’s instructive tone. “You focus.”

“And then all the hugs, the kisses, touching. … Alejandro is a big bear, big. … He’s really grandote,” or big, she said, breaking into a smile as she looked up to recall his height.

According to Reuters, the brothers left their town in the northwest part of the country on June 4, along with Andino’s wife, Margie Tamara Paz, according to media interviews with the mother.

Image:
Police and other first responders work the scene where dozens of people were found dead inside a truck in San Antonio on Monday.Eric Gay / AP

The Honduran government said identification documents belonging to the three of them were found among the bodies in the truck. They were 19 and 22, their mom said.

Andino had nearly completed a degree in marketing, while Paz, 24, held an economics degree, but they could not find work in Honduras.

“My two sons,” she said, as she broke down.

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Source: | This article originally belongs to Nbcnews.com

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