Hourly Update
Border Patrol agents find missing girl, 5, near Sierra Vista
By Brady McCombs
Arizona Daily Star
Tucson, Arizona | Published: 01.25.2008
Agents with the Border Patrol’s search, trauma and rescue team have found a 5-year-old girl who was missing in the rugged terrain of Cochise County after she became split up from her father late Thursday evening during an attempt to illegally enter the country.
The girl appeared to be suffering from initial stages of hypothermia but other than that was in decent condition, Cochise County Sheriff’s spokeswoman Carol Capas said. Borstar agents, the agency’s search, trauma, and rescue unit, found her at about 9:50 a.m. near treeline at the base of Miller Peaks southwest of Sierra Vista after they heard her crying, Capas said.
It’s unclear if she was completely alone or with others, she said. It had been cold, about 20 degrees, in the area where she was found, which sits at about 7,000 feet, Capas said.
Mexican Consulate officials are going to pick her up and take her to Child Protective Services in Agua Prieta, Mexico, said Raúl Saavedra, deputy consul at the Mexican Consulate in Douglas. They have located her mother in Ciudad Juarez and are arranging for her to travel to Agua Prieta to be reunited with her daughter.
The family is from outside of Mexico City in the central state of Mexico, Saavedra said.
The girl was grabbed by a human smuggler as U.S. Border Patrol agents closed in on a group of 13 illegal entrants late Thursday night n Miller Canyon south of Sierra Vista, Cochise County Sheriff’s spokeswoman Carol Capas said. Border Patrol agents had captured nine members of the group. They told agents that a father and his daughter were still in the area, along with other illegal entrants.
Agents found the father, but the little girl had been taken by their guide, who had not been caught, Capas said.
The smuggler was spotted without the girl and officials feared she was alone in the wilderness, which she was. At least two law enforcement helicopters along with a sheriff’s Search and Rescue team and Border Patrol agents led the search for the girl in an area bout 8 miles north of the border with Mexico, Capas said. The Border Patrol called in off-duty agents to assist.
∫ Contact reporter Brady McCombs at 573-4213 or bmccombs@azstarnet.com.
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