Mexico-US border counts deadly toll
- hace 7 años
(According to the International Organization for Migration, there were 6,951 deaths on the Mexico-US border between 1998 and 2016.)
WASHINGTON DC, Jun 13, MINDS/EFE.- The border between Mexico and the United States is the deadliest in the Americas, according to the International Organization for Migration which backs up its claim with the 6,951 deaths there between 1998 and 2016.
According to US government data, about 3,000 deaths were recorded in the state of Arizona, especially in the Sonora Desert, one of the most dangerous crossing points along with the Rio Grande in Texas.
The Colibri Center in Tucson, Arizona, which helps to identify remains found at the border, has registered 2,500 people missing at the crossing so far.
The center takes DNA samples from relatives who report disappearances and compares them to the remains obtained by a forensic doctor in Pima County, southern Arizona, where the Sonora desert is located.
"It is important because you're giving the family an answer they've been waiting for a long time," Reyna Araibi, from the Colibri Center, tells EFE.
The aim is to heal wounds and avoid further trauma like that suffered by 32-year- old Guatemalan Lisy Santos Merida.
Her husband set out for the US in 2010, and a year later, Guatemalan authorities called Merida to tell her that his remains had been found.
"They told me that they had found him and were going to cremate him. I did not realize at the time, but then I thought, how are they going to burn his remains without me identifying them?" she tells EFE via telephone from Guatemala.
She tried to prevent the cremation but failed. "I was holding this box in which my husband was supposed to be," she says, adding that on reaching her San Marcos home, she prepared a "decent burial" for him.
In 2015, 400 immigrants were killed on their way from Central America to the US. The IOM counted 321 deaths along the Mexico-US border and 79 along Mexico's border with Guatemala and Belize.
These figures do not include missing persons registered by family committees that include 450 Hondurans, 350 Salvadorans and around 80 Guatemalans, according to Mexican nonprofit Foundation for Justice and the Democratic Rule of Law (FJEDD).
The phenomenon of mass disappearances in Mexico is part of the current climate of war against drug trafficking and in the last decade, the government has registered the disappearance of 30,000 people.
This figure includes immigrants, particularly those vulnerable to the "narcos" (drug dealers), says Maureen Meyer of the Washington Office on Latin America.
"We have seen in the last decade, in the context of the expansion of organized crime in Mexico, crimes focused on migrants, who are easy targets as they are more visible, easily identifiable as migrants and, in many cases, they walk on a predetermined route. It is a problem that has existed for a long time, but is now more visible," Meyer tells EFE.
FJEDD
WASHINGTON DC, Jun 13, MINDS/EFE.- The border between Mexico and the United States is the deadliest in the Americas, according to the International Organization for Migration which backs up its claim with the 6,951 deaths there between 1998 and 2016.
According to US government data, about 3,000 deaths were recorded in the state of Arizona, especially in the Sonora Desert, one of the most dangerous crossing points along with the Rio Grande in Texas.
The Colibri Center in Tucson, Arizona, which helps to identify remains found at the border, has registered 2,500 people missing at the crossing so far.
The center takes DNA samples from relatives who report disappearances and compares them to the remains obtained by a forensic doctor in Pima County, southern Arizona, where the Sonora desert is located.
"It is important because you're giving the family an answer they've been waiting for a long time," Reyna Araibi, from the Colibri Center, tells EFE.
The aim is to heal wounds and avoid further trauma like that suffered by 32-year- old Guatemalan Lisy Santos Merida.
Her husband set out for the US in 2010, and a year later, Guatemalan authorities called Merida to tell her that his remains had been found.
"They told me that they had found him and were going to cremate him. I did not realize at the time, but then I thought, how are they going to burn his remains without me identifying them?" she tells EFE via telephone from Guatemala.
She tried to prevent the cremation but failed. "I was holding this box in which my husband was supposed to be," she says, adding that on reaching her San Marcos home, she prepared a "decent burial" for him.
In 2015, 400 immigrants were killed on their way from Central America to the US. The IOM counted 321 deaths along the Mexico-US border and 79 along Mexico's border with Guatemala and Belize.
These figures do not include missing persons registered by family committees that include 450 Hondurans, 350 Salvadorans and around 80 Guatemalans, according to Mexican nonprofit Foundation for Justice and the Democratic Rule of Law (FJEDD).
The phenomenon of mass disappearances in Mexico is part of the current climate of war against drug trafficking and in the last decade, the government has registered the disappearance of 30,000 people.
This figure includes immigrants, particularly those vulnerable to the "narcos" (drug dealers), says Maureen Meyer of the Washington Office on Latin America.
"We have seen in the last decade, in the context of the expansion of organized crime in Mexico, crimes focused on migrants, who are easy targets as they are more visible, easily identifiable as migrants and, in many cases, they walk on a predetermined route. It is a problem that has existed for a long time, but is now more visible," Meyer tells EFE.
FJEDD