By AFP | 2024-08-12

VINHEDO, Brazil -- Boarding Voepass Flight 2283 with her four-year-old son and her mother, Josgleidys Gonzalez had embarked on a long trip that was to take them to her native Venezuela and then onward to Colombia.

But her dreams, and those of everyone else on board, were dashed when the plane crashed last week in Brazil's Sao Paulo state.

The family, who had emigrated to Brazil, was among the 58 passengers and four crew on the plane on August 9 when it dropped from the sky and burst into flames in the town of Vinhedo. All were killed.

Gonzalez was 25 and her baby Joslan just a few months old when they arrived four years ago in Cascavel, a city of 350,000 in Parana state.

There she found work as a supermarket cashier, her Brazilian friend Thaiza Evangelista told AFP.

The Gonzalezes were among 7.7 million people, by the United Nations' count, who have fled Venezuela in recent years as the country struggles through a series of political and economic crises.

But the family found life in Brazil expensive and had decided to move to Colombia, after a short stop in Venezuela to deal with paperwork.

"They had friends (in Colombia) and wouldn't have had to pay for housing, because here the most difficult thing is rent," said the 52-year-old Evangelista, who had helped the family with its final travel preparations.

'A last message'

An animal lover, she had persuaded her friend to bring her six-month dog Luna along -- and had even raised funds to pay the extra cost.

This was partly for the sake of young Joslan, she said, who had been "crying nonstop, for he didn't want to leave her [the dog] behind."

Evangelista had helped them put together a complicated travel plan: They were first to fly to Sao Paulo, then take another plane to Boa Vista in the north, before getting a ride in a van to the border town of Pacaraima -- and finally taking a 12-hour bus ride to their native town of Ciudad Bolivar in Venezuela.

"She sent me a last message at 11:16, saying all was well and they were about to get on the plane," Evangelista said.

But later, to her consternation, she started receiving texts about the crash of a Sao Paulo-bound plane.

"I was desperate... the list (of victims) wasn't coming out," she said by telephone from Cascavel, where her friends and neighbors had come together upon hearing the tragic news.

Voepass later confirmed that among those on board Flight 2283 were Josgleidys Gonzalez and her son; her mother, Maria Gladys Parra; and their dog, Luna.

'A warrior'

Josgleidys Gonzalez was "a warrior," her friend said, adding: "She was very well liked. It's very difficult to keep your sweetness, your honesty and your integrity when you've been through so much difficulty."

Neirelis Orta, a 33-year-old Venezuelan who had also emigrated to Brazil and has lived in Cascavel since February, worked with Gonzalez at the supermarket.

"She had been saving up in order to go get papers" for her son in Venezuela, Orta told AFP.

"It makes me very sad -- depriving yourself of so much, of being able to eat or buy a piece of clothing you like because you have a plan, a trip and then to have your dreams end like that...

"We're devastated, and all we keep saying is that she didn't deserve that. She was full of hopes and dreams.

"It's just awful."