Since the year 2000, the Pima County Medical Examiner has received nearly 4,000 sets of human remains from people who died crossing the U.S.-Mexico border into Arizona. Here, a cross marking the place where a man in his 30s died in 2009 lays a few hundred yards from one of the water stations the nonprofit Humane Borders sets out for migrants crossing the desert.
The Tucson Sector has seen record numbers of migrants since last summer.
Sector Chief John Modlin said the volume of people crossing magnifies the risk of people dying while crossing the remote desert.
“If these numbers continue, the loss of life here will be I think more significant than we’ve ever seen before, in this sector,” he said. “It’ll be an unprecedented amount of people.”
He says migrants should call 911 if they’re in trouble or use the rescue beacons, scattered throughout the sector.
Officials recovered nearly 200 sets of human remains in the Arizona border lands last year.
Messages from officials to migrants about the dangers of crossing the Arizona borderlands.
Mensajes de funcionarios a migrantes sobre los peligros de cruzar la frontera de Arizona.
Rafael Barceló Durazo, Consul General for the Mexican Consulate in Tucson, Arizona
English
Spanish
Juan Pablo Valdivieso Valdivieso, Consul General for the Ecuadorian Consulate in Phoenix, Arizona
Spanish
Carlos Enrique DeLeon Lopez, Consul General for the Guatemalan Consulate in Tucson, Arizona
Spanish
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