Thread: Bananas crush floor of rig, killing 6 immigrants in Mexico

June 5, 2007, 12:58AM
Bananas crush floor of rig, killing 6 immigrants in Mexico
Associated Press

JUCHITAN, Mexico — Tons of bananas collapsed the false floor of a tractor-trailer smuggling migrants in southern Mexico, killing six people hidden inside a secret compartment and wounding a dozen others, officials said Monday.

About 200 Central American immigrants were hidden inside the compartment when it collapsed under the weight of the fruit Sunday in near Juchitan in Oaxaca state after a 10-hour trip that started at the Guatemalan border, Salvadoran Consul Nelson Cuellar said.

The victims included two Salvadorans and one Guatemalan. The rest have yet to be identified. About a dozen others — including Salvadorans, two Guatemalans and a Nicaraguan — were hospitalized with injuries.

The truck's driver fled the scene, and his assistant, Orlando Diaz, was arrested.

The migrants had paid between $5,000 and $7,000 to be smuggled from Central America, through Mexico and into the United States, Cuellar said.

Those who survived will be deported back to their home countries this week, state prosecutor Evencio Ramirez said.

Central American migrants often risk their lives traveling across Mexico in dangerous conditions on their route to the United States.

Last week, a man jumped to his death from a moving railway car and a boy had his leg cut off by the train's wheels as Mexican agents staged a sweep of undocumented migrants who had hopped the freight train in southern Mexico.

The number of undocumented migrants detained in Mexico rose from 138,061 in 2002 to 240,269 last year. Forty-two percent were Guatemalan, 33 percent Honduran and most of the rest Salvadoran.

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/world/4862110.html

I'm sorry, I know this isn't funny....but there's just something about illegal immigrants being killed by bananas that sort of, well.....sorry. Guess I should shut up now.

I'm sure this is all Americas fault.