A third migrant said to survive massacre, as bodies return home

Now, a third migrant is said to have survived last month's massacre in Tamaulipas, Mexico. El Salvador's president, Mauricio Funes, asserted Sunday -- almost two weeks after the killings took place -- that one Salvadoran citizen survived and is in the U.S.

Funes gave no further details, and it is not clear how the Salvadoran survived or made it to the U.S. Late Monday, however, the Mexican government expressed doubts about the existence of a third survivor, saying officials would check out the story but that there was no corroborating evidence at this point of another survivor.

Alejandro Poire, the Mexican government's security spokesman, also said a Mexican is under arrest on suspicion of involvement in the massacre, and three bodies found on a road Aug. 30 are believed to be men who participated.

The massacre has reverberated across Latin America. Confirmed victims include citizens of Brazil, Honduras, Guatemala, Ecuador and El Salvador. Reporting from the home village of one of the Salvadoran victims, a 15-year-old girl, Times special correspondent Alex Renderos says that a majority of children in school there have parents living in a U.S. city.

"There are sons and daughters living alone here, taken care of only by their grandparents," a school teacher told Renderos. "And the parents want to hug their daughters and sons and give them a better life."

In this video report by La Prensa Grafica, Funes is shown addressing officials and mourners during a ceremony at a hangar to receive the bodies of 11 of the Salvadoran victims (link in Spanish). The gray caskets are seen driven through streets where passers-by stopped to weep. El Mundo published the names of 10 Salvadorans identified so far (link in Spanish). Their ages run between 22 and 55. Three are women.

The number of Central and South Americans taking the treacherous path through Mexico to reach the United States has taken a drop in recent years, The Times reports. Yet Mexico's National Human Rights Commission estimates that 1,600 migrants are kidnapped in Mexico each month. The story adds: "In El Salvador and other countries from which the victims came, the massacre has raised another dark question: How many others have met the same fate, but were never found?"

-- Daniel Hernandez in Mexico City

Photo: Relatives of slain migrant Armando Nieto grieve in El Salvador as 11 bodies return from Mexico. Credit: Associated Press

Comments

[RWh]

I suppose that if I were a poor person from Central America or Mexico, I might try to do the same thing but since I am not, all I can do is look at it from the viewpoint of an American citizen who sees his tax burden rising yearly to support the legions of undereducated and low wage workers who then rely upon the social services sector once they arrive here. Their American Dream is our American nightmare. I wish them no harm; no one deserves what happened in that massacre, but the welcome mat is definitely not out.

[juan pueblo]

This story shows the human tragedy of misery and poverty throughout most of Latin-America. Most of these victims were poor farmers and peasants who were promised the "American Dream." Unfourtanely, Central and South Americans immigrants experience this tragic path everyday, but it's only when massacres like this one occurs that the media pays any attention. This tragedy would deter or defer some immigrants in making their trip to "El Norte," but for more many the misery and hunger is too much and they will risk it all, including their lives, to attempt to make it to the "promised land".....for the thousands that get killed on their way to their journey and in the U.S.-Mexico border RIP!!!!

[Santos Aviles]

Thank you L.A. Times for your continued coverage of the atrocities being committed in Mexico toward Central and South Americans. Please do a follow up to your last question on the article. How many have met the same fate and how many others will continue to meet the same fate? The Mexican government called for a boycott of Arizona for its treatment of Mexican nationals in that state, I propose a BOYCOTT of Mexico for its atrocious and criminal treatment of Central and South Americans. Felipe Calderon, ORDER YOUR ARMY, POLICE AND IMMIGRATION OFFICIALS TO STOP ABUSING CENTRAL AND SOUTH AMERICANS PASSING THROUGH MEXICO. YA BASTA!!!!

[2cents]

great - now send them back where they came from!