Smugglers leave children stranded in Mexico

(Vatican Radio) Mexico's National Immigration Institute says that between March 17th and 24th, they found and rescued 370 exhausted, disorienteated, dehydrated, frightened children and young people, throughout 14 Mexican States. They'd been abandoned by smugglers of the undocumented. Most are from Central America and 163 of them are younger than 18. The cynical criminal gangs had charged between three and five thousand US dollars to smuggle each of them, who were unaccompanied by adult relatives into the United States, but instead betrayed and dumped them.
Experts warn that more than 10,000 Central American migrants disappear annually, while trying to cross Mexico to reach their El Dorado of the United States. Most fall victim to the savagery of the drug cartels. Many face stark several options. Either their famlies pay a ransom for them, they join organized crime, or they're murdered, ending up in unmarked graves, dotted throughout the wilderness of the badlands. James Blears reports