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U.S. border patrol trains Mexican officials on search and rescue


ASSOCIATED PRESS

2:57 p.m. December 13, 2005

MONTERREY, Mexico – A U.S. Border Patrol search and rescue team will teach officials at Mexico's southern border how to assist migrants who find themselves in danger after sneaking into the country from Central America, a U.S. official said Tuesday.
The dozen U.S. agents are leading a two-week training for members of Grupo Beta, Mexico's special force for protecting migrants, and other government officials in Comitan, a city near the border with Guatemala, U.S. Border Patrol spokesman Salvador Zamora said.

"This training is part of a binational commitment to look at any and all possibilities to prevent the loss of human life," Zamora said in a telephone interview from Comitan.

The course, offered at request of the Mexican government, started Dec. 4 and ends Friday.

The 24 Mexican officials are being taught land navigation, rappel, medical rescue and first aid among other skills, The U.S. government is donating the search and rescue equipment used during the training.

The U.S. Border Patrol has trained more than 1,500 Mexican officials on search and rescue techniques since 1998, but the training in Comitan is the first course conducted outside the United States, Zamora said.

Scores of illegal migrants, many of them from Central America, enter Mexico's southern border on their way to the United States.

Mexico's National Migration Institute said it deported more than 100,000 illegal migrants from January to October. More than 6,500 were rescued or given medical assistance in the same period.