Freight Train Derailment Shows Price Migrants Pay to Get Into Land of the Free Rodrigo Soberanes Santin - Sapa-AP
go to original August 28, 2013

For close to two decades, thousands of Central American migrants have lost their dreams, limbs and lives trying to illegally cross Mexican territory. Mexico represents a great challenge for those whose only goal is to reach the northern border hoping to incorporate themselves into the United States. Their Calvary begins in the state of Chiapas, the moment they step on Mexican soil. (Pedro Ultreras)

The death toll in the derailment of a cargo train carrying migrants in southern Mexico rose to nine after authorities found three bodies inside a freight car, reports the Associated Press.

CHONTALPA, Mexico - Hundreds of Central Americans riding on top of a cargo train in the hope of getting to the United States were being threatened and extorted by armed men before the train derailed and killed at least six people, survivors told The Associated Press.

Many who had sneaked onto the train known as “The Beast” were thrown clear when eight of its 12 cars derailed as it hauled tons of metal junk through a remote, swampy stretch of southern Mexico, witnesses said. At least some of the dead were trapped because they had tied themselves on to avoid slipping as they rode between cars.

Witness accounts offered a close-up look at the horrifying conditions faced by the tens of thousands of Central Americans who cross Mexico in increasing numbers in hopes of finding work in the US, even as Mexican migration slows. Gangs of armed men prowl the train line, robbing, kidnapping, extorting and raping those trying to cross Mexico.

Hundreds squeeze together on top of the train's cars. Others ride between cars for lack of space, or to obtain shelter from wind and rain.

“Those are the ones who died,” Jose Hector Alfonso Pacheco, a 48-year-old Honduran, said in a shelter where Mexican authorities housed dozens of the estimated 250 migrants who were riding on the train.

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