by EFE
Relatives of migrant women have reported their disappearance in an area of the Arizona desert, according to the rescue group Capellanes del Desierto, which has reported at least a dozen cases in recent months and fears they are victims of a trafficking network. of people.
"Only this week we have just received the report of two other cases, with these there are already 12 active cases that we have," said Óscar Andrade, director of this humanitarian organization.
According to Andrade,
the women are disappearing in the same region of the Arizona desert
and their relatives have recounted that the coyotes first allege that they left them because they could no longer continue, but later they change the version arguing that they were detained by the Customs and Protection Office. US Border Patrol (CBP).
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For years, Chaplains of the Desert have worked in the search for the disappeared, whom they try to locate using coordinates or signals that their families have received.
Andrade indicated that this year the number of disappeared has increased considerably compared to 2021.
"We have been receiving up to 20 reports per week,"
he said.
In some cases, the organization has been able to find the migrants with the help of the authorities, providing them with assistance and first aid.
In others, they have only found the bodies.
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There is no trace of women.
"We contacted both the Border Patrol and the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Service (ICE) to see if there is a woman with the physical characteristics, just in case the person changed their name, but nothing," Andrade lamented. .
One of the missing is Lizet Jazmín Baryas, a 23-year-old Salvadoran woman who has not been heard from since May, after she tried to cross the border between Mexico and the United States for the second time through the Arizona desert.
Baryas wanted to meet with her husband, Carlos Alexander Arias, who is still waiting for her in the United States.
She “she tried to cross once, but was arrested and deported.
She then spoke to me and told me that she would try again.
From then on I didn't know anything about her anymore," Arias said.
A woman surrenders to Border Patrol after crossing the US-Mexico border in Yuma, Arizona.
Photo from July 11, 2022. ALLISON DINNER / AFP via Getty Images
The last thing she received was a photograph of her ready to cross the desert.
“The smuggler told me that they were discovered by a Border Patrol helicopter, that they all ran, and that from then on they never saw her again.
However, now the coyote doesn't even answer my phone,” denounced Arias, who lives in Chicago, Illinois.
The young woman paid $14,000 to be taken to the United States.
"My biggest fear is that she is in the hands of the mafia, that they are prostituting her, that she has fallen into a (person) trafficking network," Arias acknowledged.
They sent him, he says, a photo of the young woman, but it was a montage and they demanded $6,000 to inform him of her whereabouts, assuring that she was kidnapped.
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“His family paid the money, however they just lied to us.
Now they are once again contacting her mother in El Salvador, but they do not give any real proof that she is alive," Arias asserted.
According to Andrade, the coyotes have told him that there is a business involving young women who disappear during their journey.
For his part, Daniel Hernández, spokesman for the Border Patrol in the Tucson, Arizona sector, assured that every time they receive a report of someone missing, they begin their search.
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"Unfortunately immigrants are just 'merchandise' for traffickers, we know that their hearts are not tempted to abandon them to their fate," said Hernández, who indicated that they have received complaints from women who have been sexually abused by coyotes during their journey to the North.
Desert chaplains and Border Patrol urge migrants not to risk their lives.
Andrade, for her part, advises women to try to be in continuous contact with their relatives and call the emergency number 911 if they feel in danger.
In addition, he recommends presenting your asylum application cases at the ports of entry to the United States.