Devil's Path disaster

A US rescuer scans the horizon for the survivors

By Katty Kay

Details are emerging of the fateful journey of a group of Mexicans attempting to cross the border into America which cost the lives of at least 14 of them.

The group of between 25 and 28 Mexicans were seeking a new life of better jobs and higher wages but at half of them never made it. One of them is still missing.

It is the largest group of people to have died trying to cross the US Mexican border since 1987.  

The immigrants paid smugglers, known as coyotes, up to $2,000 per head to guide them across the border and through the treacherous Arizona desert.

When rescuers found the corpses they said they looked like mummies, burnt black by the sun

But after just one day, the coyotes abandoned them in the American desert with no food and no water in temperatures that reached 46C.

The smugglers told the weakened group that they only had to walk another hour or two to reach a highway. In fact the nearest road was 60 miles (97 km) away.

For five days the increasingly weak men, and one 10-year-old boy, stumbled along a sandy valley known as The Devil's Path.

Terrible death

At least 14 of them died of dehydration and heat exposure. When rescuers found the corpses they said they looked like mummies, burnt black by the sun. Their bodies were pricked by cactus spines.

"It's one of the most terrible deaths that can occur to a human being," said Johnny Williams, western regional director for the Immigration and Naturalisation Service.

He explained that by the end, the victims can become disoriented and delusional, often walking in circles in the desert sun.

The 12 survivors said they only made it by eating cactus leaves and drinking their own urine. They are now being treated in an Arizona hospital and will be sent back home when they have recovered.

One of them told a hospital chaplain: "I came here with dreams and this is what I ended up with. I am a good worker. Please don't send me back." After all he had been through, he still wanted to stay.

A journey for survival

Mexicans know those dreams all too well. Every year, hundreds of thousands brave the desert heat just as this group did.

They are driven on by the fact that workers in America can earn in an hour what workers in Mexico earn in a whole day.

Those who survive the crossing send the money back home and many Mexican communities simply would not survive without those remittances.

The group suffered heat stroke and dehydration

But the cost is very high. In the past three years, 851 border crossers have died and more than 4,000 have been rescued on the verge of death.

Officials in both countries place the blame very squarely on the shoulders of the coyotes who abandon the migrants in the desert.

'Increasingly hazardous'

"The people ... didn't decide themselves to come to this cauldron," said Johnny Williams. "These smugglers convince people that they know the way to go. In this case they told them it would only take a couple of hours."

Tough border controls force Mexicans to undertake dangerous journeys

As America tightens border controls along its frontier with Mexico, would-be immigrants are forced to try their crossings through increasingly hazardous areas.

But there is no sign that either the dangers or the deaths are deterring people from trying.

The waves of people seeking higher wages and a better life north of the border just keep coming.