Jair Acatencaltl was a stocky young man with a delicate smile. In his parents' home, his photo hangs in the main room. "That way, he's always with us," said his father, Platon, as he sat down opposite to tell their story. The family has lived here in Matamoros, in northeastern Mexico, for a quarter of a century. Platon and his wife, Delma, arrived here in 1999 from their Indigenous village in the state of Veracruz, 1,000 kilometers to the south. Today, they still live in the same house, a sort of concrete cube on a dirt street, typical of the industrial zones in the Mexican state of Tamaulipas, opposite Texas.

Platon is a factory worker; Delma looks after the children. At 21, Jair was the eldest, making them proud. "A hard-working, sensitive and generous boy, who studied engineering and worked to pay his way through school," said his mother, holding back tears. Like his parents, he had the coppery skin and thick, black hair of the Nahua people. "He was a role model for his two brothers," said his father. "But since the tragedy, they haven't been doing well, and one even dropped out of high school."

Jair worked the night shift at a 7-Eleven chain store. Plato and Delma were worried about him returning home alone every night, to a city of 550,000 inhabitants known to be dangerous, but he died behind the store counter, devastated by a gas explosion at 1:30 am on January 26, 2022. The only customer present did not survive either; his name was José Hernandez, aged 22. Two deaths, then, and a series of questions: How did this explosion happen? Was the French company Engie, which has been in charge of the local gas network for the past 25 years, be responsible in any way? The company denies responsibility, arguing that the 7-Eleven store was not under contract with Engie. On the other hand, Jair's family believes that the company's poor maintenance of its installations was the cause of the tragedy, and accuses it of "criminal negligence."

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