Migrants fearful of future in Mexico after massacre

Two men pass by the Honduran embassy in Mexico City, on August 27, 2010. Blame for the killing of the 72 presumed migrants fell on the Zetas drug gang on August 26, as President Felipe Calderon condemned the murders and cartel attacks on migrants. An injured Ecuadoran man claiming to be the sole survivor of a massacre alerted the military and told police the group had been kidnapped and killed by members of the Zetas for refusing to work for the cartel. AFP PHOTO/Alfredo Estrella


Central American migrants stopping in Mexico City on the long journey to the United States were gripped with fear after hearing about this week's massacre of 72 migrants near the US border.

Saturday, August 28, 2010
By: Sofia Miselem

TULTITLAN, August 28, 2010 (AFP) - Central American migrants stopping in Mexico City on the long journey to the United States were gripped with fear after hearing about this week's massacre of 72 migrants near the US border.

Many were unsure whether or not to continue their difficult journeys.

Two Hondurans, 22-year-old Jose Medina and 19-year-old Alex Hernandez, waited in the "House of the Emigrant," a refuge in the Mexico City suburb of Tultitlan.

Medina said he had decided to turn himself over to Mexican authorities so that he would be deported, giving up on his American dream.

"My heart tells me I can't continue north," he said, looking at photographs of the massacre on a ranch in northeastern Tamaulipas state in a newspaper.

Hernandez, however, said he would brave the infamous train journey hundreds of thousands of migrants make through Mexico each year.

"It's scary, but we're always scared. We're scared of dying of hunger if we stay at home. The person who takes no risks does nothing," Hernandez said, trembling with a fever.

Medina already tried to cross into the United States but was stopped and sent home by US Border Patrol.

Before he reached the border, he was abducted by masked men, along with dozens of other migrants, also in Tamaulipas state.

He was convinced his abductors were the notorious Zetas drug gang who are blamed in the latest case.

"They wanted the telephone number of my family to ask for a ransom, but they saw we were poor, and they let me leave."

He then swam across the Rio Bravo river, along the US-Mexico border, at Christmas before being arrested several days later in the United States.

The Mexico City refuge, a Catholic institution, shelters and feeds emigrants for up to three days.

Sometimes housing up to 200 people, it hosted around a dozen on Friday.

"There are fewer emigrants at the moment, due to heavy rain in southern Mexico but also because they're frightened. Yesterday, 12 turned themselves in to be repatriated.

Six did so today," said the manager, Guadalupe Calzada.

"They say in other refuges that many migrants are also returning home."

Julio Flores, 36, said he was seeking a train to head back to Honduras. He had previously worked for four years in California.

"I prefer to die of hunger in my country, although people don't die of hunger in the end," said Nicaraguan Juan Antonio Palacios. "The proof of that is that I've survived like this for 24 years."

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