What happened during the Uvalde killings? Nineteen children and two teachers perished on Tuesday in the Robb school in the Texas town under the bullets of Salvador Ramos, barely 18 years old. Children who survived the massacre began to testify in the American media on Saturday May 28.
Upon entering the room, the shooter closed the door, telling the children: “you are all going to die”before opening fire, told a survivor, Samuel Salinas, 10, to the chain ABC *. “I think he was aiming at me”, the child testified, but a chair between him and the shooter blocked the bullet. In the room with the floor covered in blood, Samuel Salinas tried to “play dead” so as not to be targeted by fire. “There was blood on the ground”he described. “And there were children […] bloodied.”
Miah Cerrillo, 11, tried to escape the attention of Salvador Ramos in the same way. The girl covered herself with the blood of a comrade, whose corpse was next to her, she explained to CNN *, in an unfilmed testimony. She had just seen the teenager kill his teacher, after telling her “good night”.
Another student, Daniel, told the washington post* that while the victims waited for the police to come and rescue them, no one was screaming. “I was scared and stressed, because the bullets almost hit me.” Her teacher, who was injured in the attack but survived, whispered to the students about “keep calm” and not “do not move”.
A child, also hit by a bullet, gently asked the teacher to call the police, saying she “bleeding a lot”, reported Daniel, who can no longer sleep alone and has nightmares. The children who survived “are traumatized, and they will have to live with that all their life”said his mother, Briana Ruiz.
Samuel Salinas also said he had nightmares, in which he saw the shooter. The idea of going back to school, or even seeing your classmates again, is still frightening. “I’m in no hurry”he assured, adding that he wanted “stay at home” and this “to rest”.
On Sunday, Joe Biden and his wife Jill Biden will travel to Uvalde, to “to share the mourning” of the inhabitants of this city upset by one of the worst massacres by firearm in recent years in the country. “You can’t make drama illegal, I know that. But you can make America safer”pleaded the President of the United States in a speech on Saturday, regretting that “in so many places, so many innocent people have died”.
The Democratic president, who has regularly denounced the“epidemic” gun violence, has so far failed to pass comprehensive legislation on the issue.
*All links followed by an asterisk refer to content in English.