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 News from Around the Americas | July 2007 
Bodies of 5 Suspected Crossers Found
 Brady McCombs - Arizona Daily Star
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| | At least 24 dead found this month in the Tucson sector. |
Officials discovered five bodies of suspected illegal border crossers over the weekend.
On Friday at 7 p.m., a Border Patrol agent patrolling Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument encountered the body of a 43-year-old Mexican man, said Richard DeWitt, Border Patrol Tucson Sector spokesman. No one else was found with the body, which was found five miles east of the Lukeville port of entry on a road that parallels the border, about 110 miles southwest of Tucson.
On Saturday morning, the owner of Atascosa Ranch, west of Kilometer Post 22 on Interstate 19 near Peck Canyon about 13 miles north of the border, found the body of Jose Armando Martinez Miranda, 45, of Sinaloa, Mexico, said Santa Cruz County Sheriff Tony Estrada.
It is the 12th body of an illegal border crosser since Jan. 1 in Santa Cruz County, matching the 2006 total, he said.
Saturday at noon, an agent found skeletal remains south of Milepost 13 on Arivaca Road, about 50 miles southwest of Tucson. No identification was found on the body and officials weren't able to determine the sex or age of the deceased, he said.
On Sunday at noon, an agency helicopter spotted two bodies south of Why near Milepost 62 on Arizona 85, DeWitt said. An agent went to the area, about 75 miles southwest of Tucson, and found two decomposing bodies. There was no identification and officials were unable to determine the sex or age of the deceased, DeWitt said.
The Border Patrol has recovered at least 24 bodies in the Tucson Sector in July, bringing its fiscal-year total to at least 140.
From Oct. 1 through June, the agency had reported 116 border deaths in the Tucson Sector, down slightly from the 119 at the same time the year before. The sector runs from New Mexico to the Yuma County line.
The number of border deaths is higher, according to records kept by the Pima and Cochise counties' medical examiners. Combined, those agencies had handled 184 bodies of illegal border crossers from Oct. 1 through July 23.
bmccombs@azstarnet.com. |
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