Guatemalan town grieves as natives killed in Mexico brought home

By Aaron Humes: They had hoped for a new life in the United States, but 16 migrants killed near the U.S. – Mexico border were brought for eternal rest in the Guatemalan town of Comitancillo on the weekend, the BBC reports.

Around 1,500 people gathered to remember the migrants who were brutally killed. Their bodies were flown from Mexico to Guatemala on Friday, seven weeks after they were found in a lorry near the US-Mexico border. At least 11 were from the same town, Comitancillo, in the Guatemalan highlands.

Investigators think they were killed as part of a turf war between gangs over control of migrant smuggling routes. Twelve Mexican police officers have been arrested over the killings. In total, 19 bodies, three found to be Mexicans, were recovered from the side of a road about 14 miles south from Mexico’s border with Texas.

Thousands of Central Americans fight to reach the U.S. seeking to escape poverty and violence, but the route has its own dangers – criminal gangs and unscrupulous smugglers known as coyotes, which charge thousands, as much as US$10,000 and more to get them over. The competition is fierce and investigators believe they fell prey to a rival gang.

Individual stories include cousins Santa Cristina Garcia, 19, and 16-year-old Anderson Marco Antulio Pablo, who emigrated to Florida and planned to earn enough to pay for her baby sister’s cleft lip surgery. Her father borrowed enough money to pay the coyote, giving the deeds to his home as collateral.

18-year-old Ribaldo Danilo Jiménez Ramírez’s father, too, had borrowed money to pay for his son to attempt the perilous journey to the U.S. He had called an aunt to say he and others were approaching the border in a packed bus.

Evangelical pastor, 24-year-old Elfego Miranda Díaz, was headed for New York to earn enough money to build a house for his family as well as a church. Instead, he leaves behind his wife and three children. His sister said that the family does not know how they will feed the children now that their father is dead.

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