A Migrant Tales visitor got in touch with us from Colombia and shared a sad piece of news about a twenty-six-year-old Colombian who died while detained by the police in a Finnish jail. The police claim that the young man, Sergio Camilo Becerra González, committed suicide but the parents suspect that he was a victim of xenophobia, according to Caracol.
The father of the victim said that he had heard of five similar cases where undocumented migrants had died under police detention in Finland.
Becerra González had come to Finland in May to study acrobatics. He was accepted to study at a school after he passed a three-day entrance exam.
News report (in Spanish) on Noticias Capital of Colombia about the death of Sergio Camilo Becerra González.
Becerra González won twice the Colombian cheerleader championship and was once crowned Latin American champion. His dream was to come and study acrobatics in Europe. He first went to France to study on a scholarship but was turned down a residence permit. He then came to Finland on an invitation by an acrobatics school.
The parents of the deceased claim that they are certain that their son didn’t commit suicide, according to Caracol.
”They told us that he had had some problems [in Finland],” said the mother Amanda González, ”we started to make some phone calls to some friends he had made in Helsinki, and they told us Tuesday by chat about his death.”
The parents want their son to be flown to Colombia for a new autopsy.