Posted on 10/14/2002 7:42:05 PM PDT by HAL9000
DENISON, Iowa (AP) -- Up to 11 bodies, possibly immigrants being smuggled into the country, were found in a Union Pacific rail car, authorities said Monday night.
All the victims were from Mexico, said Jerry Heinauer, district director of the Immigration and Naturalization Service for Nebraska and Iowa.
Heinauer said he was told by the Mexican consul that the car left Matamoras, Mexico, in June. It was parked in Oklahoma before heading to Denison, about 60 miles northwest of Omaha, Neb.
He said authorities do not yet know whether the victims were being smuggled into the country, but said the case fit the pattern of smuggling operations. The bodies were found Monday afternoon.
"Unfortunately it does happen occasionally that smugglers lead migrants into the United States and then they lock them in cars,'' Heinauer said.
State and local investigators, along with the railroad, were looking into the deaths. "No foul play is suspected,'' said a statement released by the Crawford County sheriff's office.
Union Pacific spokesman John Bromley in Omaha, Neb., said the bodies were found in a covered grain hopper car at the FSC Archer Daniels Midland elevator. Decatur, Ill.-based ADM is a grain processing and food products company.
Copyright 2002 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.
The scary part is that it could have easily been 11 live terrorists in the rail car complete with weapons of mass destruction.
As a humanitarian measure we should refuse all cross border rail traffic between the US and Mexico.
That there sheriff done been butchering hogs waaaaaaayyyyyy too long.
That is a most thoughtless announcement.
What an interesting assessment of a boxcar full of bodies.
One would think that they would hide in a box car, not in a covered grain hopper. How does one even go inside a covered grain hopper?
Hmmmm, I wonder if the covered grain hopper was a PS4700 or a PS4740, or an FMC4750, or a Trinnity 5100(10 or 12 panel) or.....?
"No foul play is suspected,''
OK - so no chickens were involved - that's a relief!
Sioux City, IA is actually somewhat NW of Omaha.
But Denison, Iowa is actually NE of Omaha.
11 Bodies Found in Railroad Car in Iowa>Their nationality was unconfirmed.
Tuesday, October 15, 2002DENISON, Iowa — Workers at a grain elevator were cracking open rail cars left in storage when they came across a grisly discovery: Eleven decomposing bodies. All the victims had apparently boarded the rail car in Mexico four months ago and were possibly smuggled into the country, said Jerry Heinauer, district director of the Immigration and Naturalization Service for Nebraska and Iowa.
After Monday's discovery, the rail car was sealed and shipped to Des Moines for examination by criminal investigators and the state medical examiner. The tests were to be conducted Tuesday. Heinauer said authorities do not yet know whether the occupants of the rail car were being smuggled, but he said it fits the pattern of some smuggling operations. Their nationality was unconfirmed.
"Unfortunately it does happen occasionally that smugglers lead migrants into the United States and then they lock them in cars so that authorities wouldn't check the cars," Heinauer said.
"And, sometimes what happens, closer on the U.S. side, the migrants will make some sort of commotion. They're literally trapped inside and sometimes authorities will be able to save them. In this case it seems they were not and that their deaths were horrific."
Heinauer said he was told by the Mexican consul that the rail car left Matamoros, Mexico, in June. It had been parked in Oklahoma since then, before heading to Denison, about 60 miles northeast of Omaha, Neb. Matamoros, near McAllen, Texas, was once one of the major centers for illegal immigrants seeking to enter the United States. The increased border enforcement in the 1990s shifted many immigrants away from Matamoros and farther west.
The bodies were found Monday afternoon by workers flipping open the lids of rail cars so they could be cleaned before loading at a grain elevator west of town, Crawford County Sheriff Tom Hogan said.
Authorities said they didn't know if the victims were men, women or children. Jose Luis Cuevas, Mexican Consul for the Dakotas, Iowa and Nebraska, said officials with Union Pacific Railroad, which brought the cars to Denison, had given him the impression that the bodies had been in the car at least four months.
"I presume as soon as they have some type of a way to match the ID or to try to determine possible ID, then we'll follow up with Mexico to see if we can put a name to the person," Cuevas said.
"The loss of life is a real tragedy," Cuevas said.
In 1987, Border Patrol agents found 18 Mexican immigrants dead and one barely alive in a boxcar left on a rail siding in Sierra Blanca, Texas. The survivor told authorities the man who smuggled them across the border had put them aboard a boxcar in El Paso and locked the door.
Temperatures in the boxcar reached 130 degrees and 18 men suffocated. The man who survived had punched a breathing hole in the floor with a railway spike. Source
Hmmm...were they Mexican or Chinese?
snakehead
|
|
Chinese immigrants' grim journey
Immigrant 'paid smugglers £17,000'
'Snakehead' boss arrested in China
Chinese Alien Smuggling
CHINA'S STRATEGIC DECEPTION [MUST READ!]
Chinese Headed for U.S. Found in Hong Kong Shipping Container
Harry Wu on the real China
Human Highway: Amazing Chinese illegal immigration scams to enter the USA and Canada.
*** Interview with Chinese Dissident Harry Wu
Illegal Chinese migrants using air rather than sea
Panama Canal & Hutchison Whampoa Limited
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.