For some months, organized crime has been attacking migrant shelters on the border between Mexico and the United States through threats, extortion and attacks, which has put migrants and civil society organizations on alert.
It was announced that the shelter called Embajada Migrante, located in the tourist area of Playas de Tijuana, just a few 50 meters of the border wall that flows into the sea, had to close due to these threats.
Hugo Castro, founder of the SOS Migrant Coalition, to which the shelter belongs, informed the media that, for at least For less than four months, members of criminal groups were harassing the migrants and the coordinators of said space.
“The shelter has been subjected to threats, extortion attempts, even criminals who present themselves as those who control the area entered at night, and demanded from the migrants 200 dollars each as a fee for letting them try to cross the border,” he said.
The activist said that the criminals “perhaps assume that all Migrants are going to cross the wall through that area at some point,” which, according to the activist, “is controlled by polleros (human traffickers), in collusion with organized crime” and this generated a risk for everyone.
The worrying thing, for the activist, is that this situation not only happens with this vulnerable community, but that it occurs precisely in a tourist area where dozens of tourists usually arrive and gather daily.
“That is why we call on the authorities to respond to the requests for help from migrant houses and shelters, because it will be too serious for little by little they are taking away these spaces that should be considered as sanctuaries for families that emigrate,” he said.
As a background, so far this year, shelters like Ág ape Misión Mundial, located in an area considered at risk, as well as Espacio Migrante, located one kilometer from the border port of San Ysidro, had previously reported some type of extortion and attempted aggression by members of organized crime.
Likewise, an attempted kidnapping was recorded in a migrant shelter located on the banks of the Rio Grande, in the state of Chihuahua.
Recently, hundreds of migrants, mostly of Venezuelan origin, were in a camp with tents at the along the Rio Bravo, a point known as “little Venezuela”, and weeks after they settled there, they were evicted by Mexican authorities and are now dispersed in the Mexican Ciudad Juárez, putting themselves at risk.
Rosario Sosa, a member of the Tierra de Oro migrant shelter network, told EFE that “they wanted to commit a kidnapping, some of their belongings were stolen gums and thank God it didn’t happen to majors. By this means we want to demand that the authorities be more vigilant, it is not fair that we do humanitarian work and they still rob migrants.”
He added that the action at night comes from organized crime.
The violent act occurred in the early hours of this Tuesday. “There were three recent model vehicles, in each one came three men who said they would put us in different cars, in one for women, in another for children and in another for men,” a migrant told EFE who, for security reasons, asked remain anonymous.
He added that they filled his face with oil, they began to separate them in a row. However, the criminals left because they apparently realized that the authorities would arrive.
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