A Dominican man attempting to walk over the border into the U.S. from Canada died after becoming disorientated in a marshy area of the Quebec woods.
After previously being denied entry into the U.S., Wilson Reynoso Vega was trying another tactic in an attempt to reach his daughter, the Washington Post reported.
The Surete du Quebec confirmed the death was accidental but said they didn’t know Vega’s motives for attempting to cross the border.
A request to the Canada Border Services Agency was unanswered by the time of publication.
A friend of Vega’s from Toronto is trying to help return Vega’s body to his hometown. In a GoFundMe post, Andrew Burzminski writes that Vega “tragically lost his life at the age of 30 when he decided to travel to the U.S across the Quebec border to see his family and daughter.”
Vega’s 11-year-old lived in Philadelphia with her mother, the Post reported; Vega communicated with her via video messaging.
Family members and friends told the Post that Vega was well loved in his home town of Guaraguao in the Dominican Republic.
“Here in the town, he was like a mayor,” brother Wilton Reynoso Vega told the Post.
