MEXICO CITY.- National guards and immigration agents Mexico They inspect a desert area near Ciudad Juárez, in the border with the United Statesafter finding the body of a man after relatives reported his disappearance.
The cause of death: heat stroke, as the collapse caused by prolonged exposure to extreme temperatures is known. The victim: a 45-year-old Mexican migrant from the state of Durango (north-central).
Victims of homicides, accidents or robberies, migrants seeking to reach the United States They are also dealing with the heat wave that is currently hitting Mexico and that leaves dozens dead, including several of them.
The discovery occurred last Wednesday, a week after the authorities found the body of a woman who died of dehydration, also in a desert area near Ciudad Juárez (Chihuahua state, north), where the thermometer is currently showing more than 40º C.
“It’s too hot, I came a little dehydrated, since (the temperature) doesn’t go down and it’s 43, 44 or 45 degrees,” says Dioner José Romero, a 25-year-old Venezuelan migrant.
“The sun is too strong, it’s not that I don’t get used to it, but it’s something different for me. I feel a little suffocated,” says his compatriot Nelson Ramos in a Catholic Church shelter in Juárez.
The deaths recorded Mexico since March associated with high temperatures increased to 155, after 30 new cases were reported between June 13 and 18, the government reported on Thursday.
“Don’t do it”
The body of the Mexican migrant was found among bushes, sand and under an inclement sun that forced the agents to cover their heads with their own clothing while the forensic experts carried out their work.
Around there was garbage and several empty bottles of water and electrolytes that the migrants have left in their wake to endure the long walks to the Rio Grande or the border wall, some of whose sections are up to nine meters high.
The United States border patrol indicates that since last October it has recorded 77 deaths of people in the El Paso sector, an area bordering Ciudad Juárez that extends to other areas of Texas and New Mexico. Among the main causes of these deaths are heat stroke, drowning and falls from the wall.
“The call is to avoid doing this (traveling to the border) because of the high temperatures,” said Mauricio Rodríguez, director of Civil Protection in Ciudad Juárez.
“I understand that people are forced but we recommend that they do not do it (…), the impact of the heat can lead to a fatality,” added the official after the discovery of the Mexican.
That man was initially abandoned by the trafficker who was taking him to the United States, who later returned to bury him in the desert. But when asked by the migrant’s family, he decided to reveal the location of the body.
In their search, Mexican authorities found six other undocumented immigrants, one of them with symptoms of dehydration.
Nearly 1.3 million irregular migrants passed through Mexican territory between January and May of this year alone, according to figures from the National Migration Institute (INM). On their way to the United States, several of them are victims of murder, accidents, robberies, kidnappings and extortion.
On Thursday, the Prosecutor’s Office of the state of Oaxaca (southwest) reported the discovery of the bodies of three men on a beach in the municipality of Juchitán, apparently victims of a shipwreck.
During their journey, which often includes the dangerous Colombian-Panamanian Darien jungle, migrants suffer other health conditions such as respiratory, stomach, skin or musculoskeletal ailments, as many travel dozens of kilometers on foot and in unhealthy conditions, according to the NGO Doctors Without Borders.
Source: With information from AFP
