They crossed the country with a dream.

Leandro, Ana Letícia, and Welfesom were traveling across Brazil on their way to the 60th UNE Congress in Goiânia, where they would participate in debates about the country's future. All were students at UFPA, all activists, all young. They died on BR-153, in Goiás, when a truck crossed into oncoming traffic and destroyed the minibus they were traveling in. The two drivers also died. The tragedy struck a generation that insists on existing politically.

At the opening ceremony of the Congress, held this Wednesday, July 17th, there was no dispersion or hesitation. Mourning was addressed with political firmness. All speeches, without exception, revolved around two axes: national sovereignty and taxation of the super-rich. These themes were present in the caps, banners, slogans, and microphones. Minister Márcio Macêdo was direct: “It is from this pain that the students of Brazil, at the UNE Congress, will shout. A fair taxation. For tax reform. To put the poor in the budget and the super-rich in the income tax.”

But he also spoke emotionally about the young people who lost their lives, "Three young people who came from Northern Brazil, from Pará, who crossed this country with the dream of coming here to the UNE Congress, defending our country, participating in this historic moment and writing an important chapter in the history of the student movement and of Brazil."

I heard that speech and it took me back to 2007, when I left Fortaleza with a group of university students crammed into a chartered bus, paid for with donated bills at the intersection of Avenida da Universidade and 13 de Maio. The 2.500km trip began to the sound of “Carneiro” by Ednardo, and the chorus became torture. Twenty years later, I still laugh every time I hear “Tomorrow, if the lamb comes, I’m leaving for Rio de Janeiro.” I was in my second degree, penniless, waiting for a scholarship that only arrived eight days later. I survived on cheese bread, Toddyho (chocolate milk drink), and the generosity of my friends. 

We arrived in Rio exhausted, hungry, and amazed. The Biennial was occupying Lapa with the theme "Brazil-Africa: a River called Atlantic," and our delegation was using mattresses on the floor of Cefet-Química, relieved by the coolness of the cement floor in that hot, very hot city. That heat, so different from that near the Equator, offered no respite and brought with it the outrageous comment from someone who doesn't understand geography: "People from Ceará feeling the heat???" To avoid embarrassment, we learned to stifle our complaints and endure the heat to the limit. By the second day of the event, almost the entire delegation from Ceará had a fit, and we collapsed one by one until we reached the UNE infirmary. The nurse asked where we were from. General silence. Nobody could stand any more jokes about the heat in Ceará. She insisted on listening to a weak, almost fainting voice, "Oh, my father is from Rio Grande do Sul."

And the delegation from Pará was always the most anticipated. A symbolic asset of the UNE (National Union of Students), they arrive after everything, with the most incredible stories and the most impossible accounts of the trip. Not surprisingly, twenty years later, already as a journalist, I interviewed two young student leaders who were organizing the 60th Congress. The two spoke, without planning it, of their anticipation for the arrival of the Pará delegation. Because they don't just come to represent the North, they come to represent resistance.

That's what gives this tragedy another dimension. They crossed the country with a dream. And now it's up to the country to get through this pain with dignity. Because Leandro, Ana Letícia, and Welfesom are more than victims; they are the very portrait of a youth that insists on remaining politically engaged. They were coming to write an important chapter in Brazilian history. And they did.