Migrants carry body to border agents; week's toll is 9
The Tucson Citizen
Jul. 8, 2007 08:57 AM

TUCSON - Four more bodies have been found in the desert, increasing the toll to eight suspected illegal immigrants who died crossing the desert since Monday, a U.S. Border Patrol spokesman said Friday.

The death count is not out of the ordinary, especially with desert temperatures topping 100 degrees this month.

"One a day, unfortunately, this time of year is not high," said Border Patrol Agent Sean King, a Tucson-based Border Patrol spokesman. The largest death toll King recalled was the week of July 6-13, 2005. "We had 27; that was a high," he said.





The most recent bodies were discovered Friday.v The Pima County Sheriff's Department came across human skeletal remains around 10 a.m. near Sasabe Highway at milepost 9.

"Severely decomposed," said sheriff's spokesman Sgt. James Ogden, adding they could determine neither the age nor gender of the victim.

Around 11:05 a.m., Border Patrol agents found a woman near State Route 286, King said.

King said the identification she carried listed her as 29 years old, but that's all he disclosed on Friday.

Thursday's two victims were a man and a woman, King said. In the first case, a man stumbled out of the desert about 4:45 p.m. onto Arivaca Road near Interstate 19, where he flagged down a Border Patrol agent and said he had left his brother in distress in the desert to seek help, King said.

Agents searched and found the brother, a 33-year-old from Oaxaca, Mexico, dead about a half-mile north of the road, King said.

In the second case, Border Patrol agents came across a group of more than a dozen suspected illegal immigrants at about 9:20 p.m. near Vamori, some 10 miles south of Sells on the Tohono O'odham Nation, King said.

Group members told the agents they had been trekking north through the desert since about 9 a.m. and that the woman had become ill and could not continue walking.

The group's guide went in search of water, King said, adding that when the guide returned, the woman still was too ill to go on. The woman's husband stayed with her until she died about 4:30 p.m., King said.

Group members fashioned a litter and carried the body of the 37-year-old Michoacan, Mexico, woman to where Border Patrol agents found the group, King said.

The group members have agreed to waive their rights to deportation proceedings and voluntarily return to Mexico, King said, adding the widower is being released to the custody of the Mexican Consulate to help arrange the return of his wife's body to their homeland.

The brother of the 33-year-old also has been released to the Mexican Consulate's custody to help arrange for the return of his brother's remains to Mexico.

This week:

- Wednesday, an animal research from Colorado found the skeletal remains believed to be those of an illegal immigrant in the desert.

- Tuesday, agents found the bodies two men: one a 24-year-old from Vera Cruz; the other has yet to be identified.

- Monday, the body of a 26-year-old Mexican woman was found, Border Patrol and Pima County sheriff's authorities said.


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