Where is Andrés? The mother who has been searching for her son lost in Armero for 40 years

Claudia was 17 years old when the Armero avalanche swept away her family. Since then, she has been searching for her son, whom she claims to have seen on television days after the disaster.

The 40th anniversary of the Armero tragedy, following the eruption of the Nevado del Ruiz volcano, serves as a reminder of one of the most devastating natural disasters Colombia has ever suffered . At 11:30 p.m. on Wednesday, November 13, 1985, the volcano engulfed the town of Armero in the department of Tolima. A massive avalanche, composed of 350 million cubic meters of mud and rock, buried approximately 25,000 people, plunging the country into profound grief.

Among the devastated families was that of Claudia Ramírez. She lived in Armero with her parents and her son, Andrés Felipe Cubides, who was not yet six years old. The tragedy took her loved ones. Her parents, her friends, her neighbors—all were buried under the mud.

Claudia, who is now a dentist, wife, teacher, but above all a mother who never gives up , was not in Armero that fateful night. She had said goodbye to her parents and Andrés Felipe two days earlier. At that time, she was very young and studying dentistry at San Martín University in Bogotá. Her son was living with his parents while she pursued her professional dreams.
 

The premonition of the Armero tragedy

Despite the distance, communication between mother and son was frequent. Claudia recalls, “We talked on the phone every day.” In their home in Armero, the boy, whom his grandparents adored and doted on, was “the driving force and joy of their lives.” Andrés Felipe was described as a “very cute, very cute” and “very happy” child. His mother imagines him with wavy hair, “very almond-shaped eyes, a little darker than mine,” and pictured him “happy. Smile.”

The last conversation Claudia had with her son was just before the tragedy . Armero was already under a yellow alert for possible flooding. Andrés Felipe, who was surely listening to the news about it, expressed his fear. Claudia remembers him saying, "Mommy, I'm scared of the flooding."
 

She tried to take him to Bogotá: “Mom, you know what? I want to take Andrés with me. Then my mom tells me, 'No, honey, but you're already in your final exams.' You'll be back here in eight days, don't worry,” she recalled. That was the last time Claudia saw him in person.

The catastrophe unfolded shortly after. Around 11 p.m., Claudia's mother told her, "I'm going to hang up because the power just went out. When the power went out, the avalanche was six blocks from my house." That was the last news she had of her family.

An hour later, a call alerted Claudia that something had happened in Armero . Without clear information, she and some friends decided to head towards Armero in a Renault 9. On the way, with the radio on, they heard the news. Upon arriving at the entrance to the town, the scene was desolate: “I could see gray all the way to the other side, there was mist. I found a friend there and I started asking, 'What is it?' And then she asked me, 'Where are my children?' And I asked her, 'Where is mine?'” she recalled.
 

The search for their son and parents

Claudia remained in the disaster zone for nearly ten days. Encountering such desolation was a triple loss for her father, her mother, and Andrés, as well as her friends; all had disappeared. At first, the despair was overwhelming: “Those first few days I wanted to die. I kept saying, I have no reason to live, I mean, no.”

The search for Andrés Felipe was dramatic, going from one place to another. A constant obstacle was his youth; because he was so young, the shelters didn't believe he was a mother.

The state was overwhelmed by the magnitude of the tragedy. Although the president at the time, Belisario Betancur, ordered that the children be taken into protective custody, Claudia states that the Family Welfare Institute, the responsible agency, “has never given me an answer to this day, neither about my son nor about the other children I saw. What happened to them?” She searched relentlessly, traveling through Bogotá, Medellín, Girardot, Cali, and abroad, as she knows that some children left for the United States and other countries.

Unlike her parents, whose bodies were never found, but whom she mourned despite the overwhelming evidence of their deaths, Claudia could never accept that Andrés had died . “Andrés is different. Andrés, I felt like he was there, like that little light.”
 

He recognized it on television: the light of hope

A few days after the avalanche, that "little light" turned into a firm hope when a friend gave him crucial news. The friend claimed to have seen Andrés on television. "He says, 'My name is Andrés and I'm looking for my mom, whose name is Claudia,' and I wanted to die. So, I can't die. I mean, how can I die and Andrés?" he said.

Although Claudia never saw that first image herself , the testimony of a little boy saying his name was Andrés and that he was looking for Claudia, his mother, was enough to confirm what her heart had been telling her : that her son had not died in the tragedy. This certainty shook her and made her decide that she had to keep living to find him.

Thanks to that decision, she went back to school and got ahead: “I mean, I said, I have to study, I have to get ahead, and the university gave me a scholarship,” she said. Her life went on, she fell in love again, and had two daughters.

The second visual confirmation came almost 15 years after the tragedy. One ordinary night, she heard the word Armero on television and saw her son Andrés: “I turned on the TV and they were on the show Survivors.” At first, she felt the urge to turn it off, because she didn't see anything about Armero.

However, she forced herself to watch it, and when she saw "the second or third image, Andrés appeared ." Her reaction was immediate: "That's Andrés, and I was jumping and leaping." She was able to recognize details of his clothing, like his red shorts. Even though the boy only appears for a few seconds, she is his mother and knows better than anyone that this is her son and that he is alive.

In the picture, a man is with the boy and is wearing a watch. Claudia tried to find newspapers from that time to see if she could find anyone wearing that same watch, hoping to find some clue.
 

The 40-year search that is still not over

At 63, Claudia hasn't given up and continues searching for her son, who would be 46 today. She has told her story many times because it's the only way to find him. She has knocked on every door possible. "At this point in my life, I've exhausted so many things looking for him, but I believe it's now Andrés' turn to find me," she said.

To aid their cause, Los Informantes contacted a group of students from Externado University of Colombia to generate an age-progressed image of Andrés Felipe using artificial intelligence. This aging project aims to show what he would look like today at 46 years old.

Andrés Felipe's story "is the story of many other children who were lost." For this reason, Claudia sends a message to those who have adopted children from Armero, asking them to act honestly and tell them about their origins. Claudia remains hopeful, believing in the possibility of a reunion.