A long journey ends in drama

The family of the 6-year-old boy who drowned in Montreal Monday had arrived in the country for barely three months.

"I dream of being able to go back," sobs Bukola Babayemi, 31, in her almost empty apartment where she had just moved.

On her way to the low-cost resort pool on Monday, when the weather was hot, she was far from suspecting that she was spending her last moments with her eldest son, Bukumi.

"I told him to stay next to me. But it took a second of inattention and I lost it. I immediately alerted the rescuer, but it was too late, "whispers the mother in tears.

After being found unconscious in the bottom of the pool, the boy was transported to the hospital, where his death was found.

Bukumi had to start school in September.

In the arms of Bukola Babayemi, his 10-month-old daughter, Demilade, has fun, unaware of the drama that has just unfolded. His other son, 3-year-old Jomiloju, runs around in the three-room apartment, where only three stools, a mattress, and a rocking chair for children are found.

In hopes of providing a better life for her children, Ms. Babayemi made the big trip to Canada from Houston last April, as about 6,300 migrants have done since the beginning of the year. .

Arrived in the United States in August 2016, she said she quickly realized that this country was not made for her family.

"It's so hard for the migrants there. We can do almost nothing, I had to beg for church food for my children, "she says.

Thanks to her church and the odd jobs she had managed to pick up here and there to wash floors or keep other children, she managed to set aside the few thousand dollars to make the trip to Canada.

By plane to Plattsburgh, then by bus to the border, she says she traveled several thousand kilometers to settle in Montreal.

By renting her first apartment in the country, on Avila Street, in the Saint-Léonard neighborhood, thanks to her welfare checks, she had finally found her home.

"I have never been so well received, the hospitality of people is remarkable here," said the one who has just spent two months in a shelter in Montreal.

"Now I do not know what I'm going to do," says Babayemi, who has no news of her husband, who went to New York to find a job as the family struggled to make ends meet in Houston.

She is now afraid that she will not be able to find a job because she already has two young children in her care.

"We need everything, bring some furniture," says his adoptive sister, Oluwaseyi Gaggophien.