Fifteen former migrants, all missing limbs, left El Progreso, Honduras, without money in late March, heading for Mexico, where many had been mutilated while riding the rails through the country in ill-fated attempts to reach the United States.
The men arrived in Mexico City about two weeks later, requesting a meeting with President Enrique Pena Nieto and pressing their demands that the government make visas available for those transiting Mexico.
The visas would make migration safer, they said.
“This is the cruel face of immigration. It’s the dark side that hasn’t been shared,” Jose Efrain Vasquez Izaguirre, 33, who lost a leg 13 years ago in Chiapas state while attempting to jump aboard a train, said.
He was forced to hop nearly 200 yards on one foot to find help.
“Each person who loses a limb leaves four or five more in misery (back home),” he said.
Allowing for visas would make it unnecessary for migrants to risk their lives and limbs by riding the length of the country atop freight trains.
The men said they would stay in Mexico City until they met with Pena Nieto and expressed some disappointment with only being received on April 11 by an undersecretary in the Interior Ministry, who promised visas to stay in the country on humanitarian grounds.
The visit received widespread media attention, especially when the men arrived in Chiapas state and started walking – many on artificial limbs – toward Mexico City.
The National Immigration Institute subsequently issued special permits for their visit.
The visit also drew increased attention to the trains heading north known as “La Bestia,” or “The Beast,” so named for the way they mangle and maim many migrants trying to climb aboard.
The Association of Disabled Returning Migrants, which organised the trip, has tallied at least 452 Hondurans who have lost limbs on their journey.
“The main reason they take the train is due to the lack of a visa,” says Alberto Xicotencatl, director of the Saltillo Diocese’s migrant shelter.
The train ride proves so difficult, Xicotencatl said, because many migrants are physically exhausted by their journeys, having slept little and often going hungry.
Many of the men in Mexico City told stories of fainting while riding atop rail cars and waking up with missing limbs.
CNS
