Bodies found on Mexican beach
The bodies of two dozen people washed up on a beach in the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca on Friday, hours after reports that a boat carrying illegal immigrants had sunk.
“We heard rumors of a ship sinking with migrants, and we began a search but didn’t find anything,” said Sergio Segreste Rios, the chief civil protection official in Oaxaca state. “Today in the morning, the bodies started showing up on the beaches of San Francisco del Mar,” about 350 miles southeast of Mexico City and 200 miles from Mexico’s border with Guatemala.
Officials said they suspected that the bodies were those of Central American immigrants being smuggled around Mexican checkpoints.
Central Americans seeking to reach the United States have sought new routes through Oaxaca and the neighboring state of Chiapas because a railroad that ran through the region shut down in 2005. Immigrants once jumped on the train for a free ride north.
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