In northwest Sonora, an armed attack on three vehicles transporting Central and South American migrants to the U.S.-Mexico border resulted in the deaths of two women and a 4-year-old boy last week, Sonoran officials say, but migrant advocates believe the death toll could be higher.
Sonoraβs attorney general confirmed to Sonoran media that three migrants died in Thursdayβs attack in SΓ‘ric, Sonora, about an hour south of the border with Arizona, and said βthree or fourβ additional victims were hospitalized in CabΓ³rca.
Gustavo RΓ³mulo Salas Chavez, attorney general of Sonora, said in a Monday press conference that the Mexican Army had arrested a criminal cell of eight people with long guns in the area who may have been involved in the attack.
Southern Arizona aid workers told the Arizona Daily Star that on Friday, they encountered and rendered aid to survivors of Thursday nightβs attack. The migrants crossed the border through a gap in the border wall nearly 20 miles east of SΓ‘sabe, Arizona, before border agents picked them up later that day, volunteers say.
One victim was a woman from Peru with a bullet graze wound that a volunteer nurse treated on site, said Randy Mayer, pastor and co-founder of the Green Valley Samaritans. Also among the survivors was a young man from Ecuador who was devastated by what he reported was the death of his 10-year-old sister in the attack, he said.
βThe people were really filled with fear and were so thankful to be out of control of the cartel,β Mayer said.
The official report from Sonoran officials did not mention a 10-year-old victim.
But a New York-based law firm that advocates for Ecuadorian immigrants questioned the official death tally during a Tuesday interview with Sonoran media outlet Proyecto Puente.
The firm, 1800 Migrante, was assisting one of the Peruvian survivors in his search for a missing relative following the attack, and found his sister was among the three confirmed deaths. The other female victim was from Honduras and the 4-year-old victim was from Ecuador.
The law firm has demanded more transparency from Mexican authorities, who didnβt release any statement on the incident until the Sonoran attorney general spoke to Sonoran reporters on Monday.
βWe are convinced there are more than three deaths and the authorities donβt want to say it,β William Murillo, director of 1800 Migrante, told Hermosillo-based Proyecto Puente. Murillo said about 50 migrants were traveling in the three vehicles that came under fire, while Sonoraβs attorney general said it was between 11 and 14.
On Friday, aid workers in Arizona witnessed an armed human smuggler directing the survivors through a gap in the border wall east of SΓ‘sabe. The smuggler β whom aid workers heard apologizing for the attack migrants had experienced β took a photograph of each person and logged their name, likely to prove each person had crossed and to get payment for each, Mayer said.
Mayer said aid workers brought the survivors to a make-shift encampment along the border wall that volunteers have established in the remote area.
βWe made some soup and coffee, and only then did it feel like they were calming down and started talking,β he said. βThey just said they were crammed in these vehicles and the shooting started happening, and they were trapped.β
The survivors reported that the cartel-affiliated smuggling group that was transporting them tried to protect them from the other criminal groups who attacked the vehicles, he said. After the shooting, the smugglers who had brought the migrants to SΓ‘ric were able to transport them the rest of the way to the border, east of SΓ‘sabe.
The injured Peruvian woman was inconsolable, said Gail Kocourek of the Tucson Samaritans, who arrived at the border wall shortly after the survivors did.
βShe started telling us her story and she was crying and crying. It was just heartbreaking,β she said.
Violence against migrants βconstantβ
The small town of SΓ‘ric, where Thursdayβs attack occurred, has been a way-station for migrants seeking to reach the Sonora-Arizona border, and locals say it's largely controlled and tightly surveilled by criminal groups.
Last weekβs violent attack highlights the grave dangers facing migrants on their journey through Mexico.
The risks have escalated in Sonora in recent months, as a violent battle between factions of criminal gangs in the state has resulted in an exodus of residents from the small border town of SΓ‘sabe, Sonora.
While this latest incident made the news, violence against migrants is all-too common, said Dora Rodriguez, a Tucson migrant-rights advocate and co-founder of Salvavision. In 2021, the binational nonprofit established a migrant resource center in SΓ‘sabe, Sonora, currently shuttered due to the areaβs violent conflict, which has forced all but about 100 residents to flee the town.
Migrants not only face the risk of targeted attacks, but increasingly they risk being caught in the cross-fire of conflicts between criminal groups, who are fighting for control of the massively profitable human-smuggling routes in the region, Rodriguez said.
Mexican authorities have failed to protect the vulnerable migrants traversing the country, she said.
βThere is no protection from the authorities,β she said. βThis is not new. These criminal acts are happening every day. But in small numbers, it doesnβt make the news. People constantly are getting kidnapped and getting killed.β
U.S. policymakers are debating proposals such as a return to something similar to the pandemic-era Title 42 policy that allowed border agents to return arriving migrants to Mexico without giving them a chance to request asylum. That policy resulted in large numbers of migrants trying over and over to cross the border, further increasing the profits of the human smugglers taking advantage of the policyβs implications, migrant advocates say.
The now-defunct βRemain in Mexicoβ policy, established in the Trump administration, forced asylum seekers to await their court date in Mexico and resulted in human rights abuses, particularly kidnappings, against vulnerable migrants waiting in camps along the border.
Human rights advocates have documented instances of kidnapping, physical and sexual assault, robbery and extortion of migrants subject to the policy, both at the hands of criminal actors and corrupt law enforcement or immigration officials in Mexico.
The possibility of a return to policies that return migrants to imminent danger has advocates in Arizona worried.
βItβs easy for us as a country to say, βAll right, weβll shut the borders. Weβll wash our hands of it and you are not our problem,ββ said Rodriguez, who said sheβs talked to migrant women who were raped and men who have been tortured while waiting in Mexico. βItβs closing your eyes to the reality of these hundreds of thousands of people being exposed to more criminal activity.β
Those who get desperate enough inevitably turn to human smugglers to get them across the border, because regular pathways to request asylum at ports of entry are inaccessible for most, she said.
With these policies, βweβre increasing the business of these (smuggling) groups,β Rodriguez said. βItβs totally wrong. Itβs not the way to do it.β
U.S. politicians are prioritizing photo ops at the border, rather than creating legislation to deal with the reality here, Mayer said.
βThe easiest thing to do is throw money at the Border Patrol and say, βTheyβre going to solve our problems,ββ he said. βBut the problems are much deeper than what the Border Patrol can solve. Theyβre being asked to do a horrible job in horrible conditions and they donβt have the training for it. They donβt have training to take of 3-year-old babies.β