Augusto Itúrburu

Augusto Itúrburu Carabajo (Guayaquil, Ecuador; 1979 or 1980 – 15 April 2020) was an Ecuadorian teacher and sports journalist, known to his colleagues with the surname Tururú; he worked for the newspaper El Telégrafo.

Early years

Augusto Itúrburu Carabajo was born in Guayaquil, Guayas province, Ecuador. When he finished high school, he performed a year of service within his Baháʼí community, during 1998, on the brink of the 1998–99 Ecuador financial crisis, where he lived with disadvantaged communities, teaching young people, staying in their homes and living with the minimum, in places like Tosagua, in Manabí and in the northern area of Esmeraldas, in Selva Alegre and Timbiré.

He studied journalism at the Universidad Laica Vicente Rocafuerte in Guayaquil, where he later taught and where in 2011 he founded the university's radio station, Radio Laica. On 16 and 19 March, he went to Los Ceibos Hospital of the Ecuadorian Institute of Social Security (IESS) for breathing problems; on 16 March he was not subjected to any tests despite feeling very ill, and on 19 March he was given penicillin and sent home, where he waited ten more days before a test for COVID-19 could be carried out. He was admitted for respiratory complications at IESS Hospital Los Ceibos on 23 March and obtained the results of the test, which came back positive, when he was already in serious condition. Nelson told the press that he believed that this was not the only case and that he doubted that the rings, the watch and the cell phone had been burned.