Relatives of Omar Reyes, a young Mexican migrant who disappeared earlier this month in the Chihuahuan desert after escaping from the Border Patrol, ask to reinforce their search with the help of a helicopter, fearing that he can no longer bear the harsh conditions on the ground: he
has been in the desert for 12 days
.
The aunt of the disappeared young man, Sheila Arias, indicated that according to the tracking protocols of the Mexican authorities this Sunday would be the last day of the search.
"
They are hours of hope, golden minutes,
" he said on his Twitter account.
The last messages of the 19-year-old to his family, before running out of battery in the phone, were last Wednesday through audios on WhatsApp.
"He said he was fine, alive, but very tired," his mother, Silvia Reyes López, told the newspaper El Universal.
The young peasant said that
he had food and water left for only three more days
.
["A great wall is not going to stop people at the border": art remembers the lives of migrants and their deaths in the desert]
In desperation, Reyes accepted his family's recommendation to
call 911 to give the coordinates of his cell phone
to the US authorities, who forwarded the information to his Mexican counterparts.
Beta Chihuahua, a protection and rescue group of the National Migration Institute (INM) in Mexico told the local press that the search began that same Wednesday, but that it has not borne fruit: "the terrain is very large and extremely complicated."
The coordinates of Omar Reyes indicate that he is in Guadalupe Distrito Bravo, a desert area between Ojinaga and Ciudad Juárez.
"
We got to the exact point where the call was made, but we did not find the young man,
" said Beta Chihuahua.
[Deportations of Central Americans on the US-Mexico Border Increase]
The Chihuahuan desert on the border with the United States has been the scene of numerous disappearances of migrants who do not manage to survive the journey, with more than 40 degrees Celsius during the day and temperatures below zero at night, or the assault by groups of the organized crime.
On the border between Mexico and the United States, the bodies of 429 migrants have been recovered during 2021. The highest number in 20 years
Sept.
7, 202102: 04
Reyes had left at the end of October the ranch where he lives with his grandparents, his mother and his five brothers in Santa María Amajac, in the municipality of San Salvador, Hidalgo state, to emigrate to the United States, where he already had relatives living .
"He did not go alone, because he barely knows how to read and write," his aunt Sheila Arias told the newspaper El País.
The group, of about ten people, managed to reach Ciudad Juárez at the beginning of the month and in the early morning of November 2-3, they entered the desert to cross the border, but they ran into Border Patrol agents.
When the group dispersed, the young man was left alone and lost.
A week later, he communicated with his family member on WhatsApp.
"After calling 911 he contacted me and
begged them to please find him, that he can't take it anymore,
" said his aunt.
That was his last message.
Since then, the family has not heard from him.
One of the biggest fears is that even if he manages to survive the desert conditions, he could be kidnapped by organized crime, as was feared last month with a group of 13 migrants who disappeared in the Chihuahuan desert.
The group had left the capital of Chihuahua on September 22 with a coyote and was also trying to cross into the U.S. But a 14-year-old teenager who was with them and managed to escape told the police that they were intercepted, abused and kidnapped while they were crossing the desert.
[An Ecuadorian migrant fleeing family violence dies in the desert]
“They had no enemies.
They are people who are dedicated to honest work, "a young relative of two of the disappeared told Noticias Telemundo.
