Lorraine Rivera Reports
Desert deaths on the rise; more women than ever

July 26, 2007 09:17 PM EDT

There's been a spike in desert deaths, and it's not just men dying. The Pima County medical examiner's office is seeing the remains of more women than ever.

In just six months, 150 people have died in Pima County after illegally crossing the U.S./Mexican border. Of that number, nearly 40 are women, and that's a number no agency has seen before.

As of Thursday, 39 women have illegally entered Pima County and died.

"There's no way to describe it other than the way we do. It's a human rights crisis; I mean it really it is," said Kat Rodriguez coordinator for Derechos Humanos.

She collects data from medical examiners in Southern Arizona. It shows more women are crossing, and more are dying. "The majority of women that I've talked to are coming for family reunification, looking to put the family unit back together."

And there's a name, a story and a face to every one of those numbers. It's a puzzle being put together here at the Pima County medical examiner's office.

"This is the only part of her that was recovered." Dr. Bruce Anderson said one in three bodies that comes in to his office belongs to a female illegal immigrant.

"For whatever reason, more are dying in Pima County in the last couple of months than what we've seen in the last few years," he said.

Deputies found a skull in May from a woman with little information to go on. "We hope that with this increased number of women who have died this summer we hope that we can match them up to the dozen or so missing person reports that we have for missing women. "We hope to return the bodies to the families," Anderson said.

The medical examiner says the number of female deaths has increased every year. In 2005, 32 women died. And in 2006 that number went up 33 deaths and so far this year 39 have died. At this time last year, 24 had died.


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