Nine migrants died and 37 were rescued as they tried to cross the rain-swollen Rio Grande River into the United States near Eagle Pass, Texas, US customs officials said, warning people to avoid crossing.
US Border Patrol said more rain was forecast in the coming week. “Despite these adverse conditions, US Border Patrol, Del Rio Sector continues to encounter large groups of more than 100+, 200+ attempting to cross the Rio Grande daily,” it said.
“In an effort to prevent further loss of life, we are asking everyone to please avoid crossing illegally.”
Border patrol agents, along with local fire and police agencies, searched on Friday for possible additional victims, a day after the Thursday incident, the Customs and Border Protection said earlier.
A total of 53 migrants were taken into custody by US border patrol agents on Thursday, including the 37 rescued from the river, the agency said. Mexican government authorities arrested 39 people.
Out of the nine dead, three were found by the Mexican government and six by US Border Patrol agents, US customs officials said.
The Rio Grande swelled in recent days due to unusually heavy rains that flooded the streets of Piedras Negras, Mexico.
Other groups of migrants also struggled on Thursday evening to cross the fierce currents of the river between Piedras Negras and Eagle Pass.
Several men from Venezuela were successful after at least an hour attempting to ford the river’s fast waters, shirtless, with few belongings and using a rope to help one another, yelling “Help! Help!” once close to the US shore.
One man from the group clung to a concrete column under the international bridge for minutes after his friends made it to shore, afraid to let go as the water rushed past until his companions returned to help.
Texas has been at the center of a fierce national debate over illegal immigration that will likely play a role in the November mid-term elections.
Federal and local officials are scrambling to locate close to a dozen unaccompanied migrant children, after Houston police raised concerns about their whereabouts, Reuters reported on Friday.
The deaths and missing children underscore the challenges for President Joe Biden’s administration as it faces a record number of unaccompanied kids arriving at the southwest border.
9 migrants drown in swollen Texas river in desperate attempt to enter US
https://arab.news/cfw73
9 migrants drown in swollen Texas river in desperate attempt to enter US
- 37 were rescued from the river by US and Mexican authorities
- The Rio Grande swelled in recent days due to unusually heavy rains
Archbishop of York says he was ‘intimidated’ by Israeli militias during West Bank visit
- “We were … intimidated by Israeli militias who told us that we couldn’t visit Palestinian families in the occupied West Bank,” the archbishop said
LONDON: The Archbishop of York has revealed that he felt “intimidated” by Israeli militias during a visit to the Holy Land this year.
“We were stopped at various checkpoints and intimidated by Israeli militias who told us that we couldn’t visit Palestinian families in the occupied West Bank,” the Rev. Stephen Cottrell told his Christmas Day congregation at York Minster.
The archbishop added: “We have become — and really, I can think of no other way of putting it — we have become fearful of each other, and especially fearful of strangers, or just people who aren’t quite like us.
“We don’t seem to be able to see ourselves in them, and therefore we spurn our common humanity.”
He recounted how YMCA charity representatives in Bethlehem, who work with persecuted Palestinian communities in the West Bank, gave him an olive wood Nativity scene carving.
The carving depicted a “large gray wall” blocking the three kings from getting to the stable to see Mary, Joseph and Jesus, he said.
He said it was sobering for him to see the wall in real life during his visit.
He continued: “But this Christmas morning here in York, as well as thinking about the walls that divide and separate the Holy Land, I’m also thinking of all the walls and barriers we erect across the whole of the world and, perhaps most alarming, the ones we build around ourselves, the ones we construct in our hearts and minds, and of how our fearful shielding of ourselves from strangers — the strangers we encounter in the homeless on our streets, refugees seeking asylum, young people starved of opportunity and growing up without hope for the future — means that we are in danger of failing to welcome Christ when he comes.”
