Darcy Diaz had never really planned an event before. But when her aunt and cousin died within a month of each other, she was desperate to put together a memorial service in honour of the people they were. She paid close attention to every detail, from the music they chose to the poems that were read out.
On the day of the service, earlier this month, she awoke feeling nervous, yet hopeful. “I remember waking up and thinking that finally after today I can start to properly grieve,” Diaz says. “It was a day for closure.”
Yet, by the end of the day Diaz and her mother, Isis Calderon, were left traumatised and fearing for their lives after a shocking shooting outside the service at St Aloysius Church in Euston, central London. Four women and two children were injured. One of the women, aged 48, has “potentially life-changing injuries”, and remains in hospital, the Metropolitan police said. A seven-year-old girl and all other victims have since been discharged from hospital.
The media coverage that ensued has prevented Diaz and Calderon from processing the loss of two beloved family members, they say.
Calderon, 56, moved to the UK in 1991. Her father was a cacao farmer in Colombia, but violence had driven her out of the country. Calderon, who works as a nurse in the NHS, says: “I left Colombia because I wanted a peaceful life in England.”
She helped bring over her younger sister Fresia Calderon, 50, in 1992. Her younger sister Fresia, she explains, was a single mother who worked as a cleaner and raised her two children, her daughter Sara Sanchez, 20, and her son, 11. She dedicated much of her life to supporting Sara, who was diagnosed with B-cell acute lymphoblastic leukaemia in May 2020.
“When she was sleeping in the hospital, she left the hospital at five in the morning to go clean offices and run back to Sara. When Sara was awake at nine, she was back in the hospital,” Calderon says, speaking from her flat in London.
Sara relapsed three times in her two-years with leukaemia, but Diaz says her aunt never gave up hope. “When most people would give up, she [Fresia] always kept going because her faith kept her going. She had her faith in God, it’s what she fought for and what was her fuel. She always said her children were her life,” Diaz adds.
The family were shocked when Fresia died suddenly from a pulmonary embolism on 5 November. Sara cried for a week, Diaz says, and shared a poem she had written for her late mother. On 30 November, Sara also died. Her poem, titled Red Tulips, was read by Sara’s younger brother at her memorial service.
“It’s just surreal. Just nothing feels real. You just really do feel an emptiness. It’s a void that I don’t think I will ever recover from,” Diaz says.
Diaz decided to organise a memorial service for her cousin, whom she was especially close to, and her aunt in January. She described the service that took place as beautiful. “I really wanted the day to be special for them. I was looking forward to having the people that supported their journey, their friends and family to really be together for once in their name.”
Calderon adds: “My sister was a single mum. You know how difficult it is to be a single mum in England. A lot of people supported us because she had to be in a hospital for 26 months with my niece. A lot of people were helping her, helping us, to pick up her son from school, or take some food for them to eat in the hospital.”
Diaz and Calderon were keen to emphasise that Sara did not have a relationship with her father. After the shooting, the mother and daughter said they felt they had been robbed of what was supposed to be a celebration of Sara and Fresia.
Diaz was angry and upset that the focus had been taken away from them. “It’s just a slap in the face. It’s hurtful for me to see that my auntie and Sara’s faces are in the newspapers for something that had nothing to do [with them]. It’s just that they’re being overlooked and I really wanted that day to be a special day.”
Both Diaz and Calderon spoke of their overwhelming feeling of guilt after the service.
They went on to see media reports that speculated about the reasons behind the shooting, focusing specifically on Fresia’s ex-husband, who was extradited from Colombia to the UK, and jailed in 2009 on charges linked to money laundering and drug offences.
The family have rejected these claims entirely. They spoke of their distress of seeing pictures of Sara as a minor in some reports that made a link to Colombian cartels.
The Metropolitan police have said they are unaware of any links with South American drug gangs or violence and that the incident is believed to be linked to local gangs.
Diaz says: “I think they were stereotyping us as Colombians. And the fact they even added the word cartel. I think that’s just adding not only a negative profile to us as a family, but also the Colombian community.”
Calderon adds, looking at her daughter Diaz: “I had no idea who is the Colombian cartel.” Calderon says that her sister divorced her ex-husband more than 15 years ago.
“She was a cleaner … and raising money to pay private care for her daughter,” Calderon said.
The story of the shooting reached the international press. Diaz says that the widespread coverage has “literally impacted our own safety, [we are] scared to even go to Colombia now”.
Diaz and Calderon say they are living in fear in London and afraid to leave their home. Calderon says she feels “scared to go to the corner shop”. She says that as a Colombian, she had already faced micro-aggressions, but now these have been compounded by the claims in the media.
Diaz adds: “They’re not letting them rest. They’ve already had such a hard time living and now even in death, they are not at peace. I just find it disrespectful. It’s painful to watch, and I also feel helpless.”
Calderon says she feels unwell at the thought of going into work: “I’m feeling sad going back to work because I don’t know how my colleagues are going to see me now.”
Speaking of her mother, Diaz says: “Only now in her 50s, after escaping violence, she’s feeling anxiety and PTSD.” Calderon says she cowers whenever she hears loud noises.
Diaz shares that the past few months have been “constant pain”, but she remains focused on supporting Sara’s younger brother who she says “never got to really say a proper goodbye to his mum and sister”.
Calderon’s and Fresia’s niece, Isis Junior, later adds that Fresia helped take care of her. The family says they were driven to speak out so people knew who Sara and Fresia really were.
Diaz and Calderon want the world to know that Fresia and Sara should be remembered for their character and their hopes for the future. Diaz says that Fresia dreamed of regenerating the cacao farm her family owned in Colombia where she hoped to grow fruits. Calderon says that the farm was one of the few places Fresia had seen their parents truly happy.
They wanted to thank the staff at the T-12 cancer unit in University College London Hospital and the Macmillan team for the support they give to the family. “Sara had a special relationship with the staff members there,” Diaz said.
Diaz adds that she wanted people to know that Fresia always smiled, loved to cook for people, and many admired her strength. “I felt like in life she was overlooked and people didn’t see the sweetheart that she was. In the eulogy, I wrote just like her name, she was sweet like a flower.”
She describes her cousin as the personality of the family. “She had the biggest and loudest voice, but the biggest heart,” Diaz said. She adds that Sara was a mental health advocate had had aspirations to help children better access decent education in Colombia. That was how Diaz and Calderon wanted people to remember them.
