Many faint, go into despair, others abandon it, all risk their lives.
Suffocated, huddled together like animals and feeling captive. The migrants risk their lives in the trailers that take them to the border with the United States, suffering misfortunes such as 55 illegal immigrants who died in an accident in Mexico.
Trips organized by human traffickers last up to two days and, despite covering hundreds of kilometers, they are seldom detected, according to testimonies obtained by AFP.
“I thank God that he brought us alive, because it is a nightmare to come in those trailers,” says Honduran Cecilia Hernández, 39, in a shelter on the border of Ciudad Juárez (northern Mexico), where she arrived after being deported. in November from the United States.
The truck that crashed last Thursday against a pedestrian bridge on a highway in Chiapas (south) was carrying 160 migrants, mostly Guatemalans. There were a hundred injured.
Truck accident with undocumented migrants in Mexico, in which 55 people died, is the result of a latent problem
Cecilia was deported twice from the United States in November after entering illegally from Reynosa (Tamaulipas, northeast), where she arrived with three children, ages 2, 4 and 16, in a crowded truck.
“Many people fainted, children too. Many people undressed because we were drowning ”from heat, points out the woman in the bunk where she sleeps and shelters from the intense cold.
The trip lasted two days. “They pressed us like animals, locked up. There is air (conditioning), but then it turned off and everyone wanted to go out, but they couldn’t (…). There you are as a kidnapped person ”, he adds.
The “anguish” was such that his son and other passengers began to make holes in the cabin to breathe.
Two Ecuadorians injured in an accident in Chiapas-Mexico
Then they were abandoned in a desert area where they spent three nights, said the woman, who has two other children in the United States since 2019 who have paid thousands of dollars to the “coyotes” (traffickers) so that the rest of the family can pass. The 16-year-old crossed only recently.
Saved from fire
Behind the sinister in Chiapas, the government recalled that since October it has deployed three operations in which it found about 1,400 migrants who were mobilized in trailers, including about 200 minors.
One of those findings saved the life of 19-year-old Guatemalan Angélica Reyes, who is seeking asylum in the United States because the man who raped her has threatened her for having denounced him.
For 15 hours he traveled with 450 other people in a truck that was suddenly abandoned by the driver in Veracruz (southeast). “Later we saw on the news that the trailer was about to catch fire (catch fire),” says the young woman at the Buen Pastor shelter, where she was also deported.
Desperate, the migrants tried to evacuate through the roof of the van, but the police arrived and broke the bolt with a shot.
Several travelers were detained, but Angélica left and the traffickers reunited part of the group in Mexico City.
“About a week later they took us out again in a trailer. And we again, with fear ”, he says.
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During this second 12-hour drive, the air conditioning broke. It was “like we were in a freezer and everyone started to suffocate, some fainted,” he recalls.
Faced with the claims, the driver threatened to leave them locked up, but then the situation normalized and they reached their destination, says the young woman, saddened by the death of her compatriots in Chiapas, the main entry point for undocumented immigrants. “His dream was cut short,” he says.
So far this year, 821 migrants have died traveling through Central or North America, according to the International Organization for Migration (IOM).
The main cause is traffic accidents (162), followed by lack of food, water, shelter (142) and drowning (108).
For a better future
Honduran Diana Yoliveth León, 28, also suffered torture during her 14-hour journey in trailer, without food or the possibility of going to the bathroom.
It was “the most difficult of the whole journey” since he left with his seven-year-old daughter almost three months ago, he confesses.
Despite the flushing, travelers avoid drinking water so they don’t have to urinate, they say.
“We came sitting, all in line, piled high. A lot of people came, at least 120 people, ”says Diana, expelled like Cecilia and Angélica, shelter companions, under a rule that seeks to prevent the spread of covid-19.
“But if you want to give your family and your children a better future, you have to take risks,” he justifies. (I)
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