290 Mexicans die crossing US border

290 Mexicans die crossing US border
2008/08/02
10:27:57 Þ.Ù

A total of 290 Mexicans have died trying to cross the border into America in the first half of 2008, according to a lawmaker in Mexico's Chamber of Deputies.

The number compared to 520 Mexicans who died in the whole of 2007 as they sought to cross the Mexico-US border, said Edmundo Ramirez Martinez, secretary of the committee on population, border and immigration affairs.

"There is an increase in deaths of Mexicans on the northern border," he said, adding it was a trend over six years.

With about 325,000 people trying to emigrate to US territory each year, "every minute a Mexican abandons his community and every minute a family disintegrates," he said.

The opposition lawmaker did not say what were the causes of death for the illegal immigrants but human rights groups and media reports say most victims die from heat exposure in desolate desert terrain, drowning and accidents from train-hopping.

Relations between Mexico and America have been strained over US treatment of millions of illegal immigrants -- including an estimated five million Mexicans -- and efforts to build a wall along much of the two countries' 3,000 kilometer (1,600 mile) border.

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