Sunland Park, New Mexico Jul 14, 2024 (Issuewire.com) - Anywhere else in the U.S. a report of six separate sites with human remains would generate media coverage and a multi-agency response. But this is the Southwest, and more specifically, the borderlands. Here in states like Arizona and New Mexico reported deaths are approaching and exceeding 200 per year, per state. Many estimate the true number closer to 1000 annual deaths per state and 5000 annual deaths total border-wide.
There are few witnesses here to what some call a slow motion genocide or death by design. These deaths are mercilessly slow, excruciatingly painful, and most occur under the cover of the vast desert wildlands, far from public view. Animals tear the deceased apart and quickly consume and scatter the remains. Desperate 911 calls, normally fielded by county search and rescue teams, are rerouted to border patrol if there is any suspicion the hopeless voice could be that of an undocumented person.
After years of seeing human remains ignored, mishandled, and denied dignity, a few humanitarian search and rescue volunteers decided to audit or revisit a handful of previously reported sites. Usually these sites are so remote, revisiting them would take away valuable time and resources from the self-funded humanitarian efforts, but the uneven response has become too great to ignore.
Of the eight sites visited over two weekends by two volunteers, six sites had significant remains left behind. A few of the dead had been identified with names like Araceli, Jorge, Guadalupe, and Ismael. Others are yet nameless. One of the currently unidentified, a female, found near Sunland Park by the same volunteers during a larger scheduled search last December, was found with a bra next to a rib bone. Seven months later an unrecovered rib bone lies in the desert next to a human vertebrae.
The volunteers have developed efficient protocols over the years, filling out detailed reports, obtaining accurate GPS coordinates and taking overhead photos with forensic rulers for each site. Challenges arise as they attempt to report these sites. From dispatchers to sheriff's deputies and office of medical investigator field agents the response tends to be confrontational as these cases are classified as "migrants" or "undocumented" versus tourists or U.S. citizens.
While attempting to report five separate sites in Dona Ana County recently, the sheriffs deputy refused to provide an email so the volunteers could forward their reports. He flatly stated, My supervisor told me not to give you an email. Rather he instructed the volunteer to read off the seven separate, lengthy GPS coordinates from the five sites. This could be seen as a tactic whereby law enforcement can conveniently lose or claim inaccurate data as was done by the same county sheriff's department and the NM OMI seven months earlier for one of the same discovered human remains sites.
Later that same day the volunteer sent the coordinates, photos and reports via email directly to the OMI and the top sheriff of Dona Ana County. At 9:30 the same night the sheriff, who is currently facing multiple civil lawsuits, called the volunteer at home. She berated volunteers, calling them hobbyists and threatened to come to their home and did little to alleviate the suspicions of negligence and strategic mishandling of migrant remains.
The Battalion Search and Rescue is an all-volunteer, humanitarian non-profit that searches the borderlands for lost and missing migrants. The Battalion SAR has recently expanded their work from Arizona to New Mexico and the El Paso Sector which has the highest rate of female fatalities along the entire U.S./Mexico border. Please consider donating to the Battalion's efforts via their website. www.battalionsar.com
Source :Battalion Search and Rescue
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