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Rail closing strands migrants in Mexico

Many U.S.-bound Central Americans are deported Wednesday.

By ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published August 16, 2007

MEXICO CITY - The closing of an American-run railroad in Mexico stranded thousands of U.S.-bound Central American migrants near the Guatemala border and many of them were deported Wednesday by immigration authorities.

Some camped along rail lines waiting for trains that will never come.

Others tried to walk hundreds of miles to the next working rail line and some turned themselves in to Mexican authorities.

The government sent hundreds of federal police and soldiers Tuesday to clear out the migrants, who for decades have hopped freight cars on the Chiapas-Mayab railway. The company has run freight trains on two sets of tracks in southern Mexico - one that passes near Guatemala's northern jungle, and another that goes from the Guatemalan border up the western coast.

In July, the Connecticut-based Genesee & Wyoming Inc. withdrew from a 30-year concession to operate the Chiapas-Mayab line.

Company spokeswoman Jeanette Rosado said damage to railway tracks caused by a 2005 hurricane forced the pullout. She also said that rail workers had been assaulted, and that train-hopping migrants delayed operations and cost the company money.

But Central American migrants keep streaming into towns where they once climbed onto the trains.

Thousands have been camping along rail lines, waiting for trains that will never come, said Guatemalan Consul Rogelio Mendez.

Mexico's National Immigration Institute did not respond to requests for comment.

Thousands more migrants were stuck at Ariaga in Chiapas state, and Salvadoran Consul Nelson Cuellar said many had started walking toward a rail line in Coatzacoalcos, almost 300 miles away.

"That is a marathon walk" through countryside where the threat of being assaulted or robbed is constant, he said.

The government says it hopes the railway will run again under another operator by mid 2008.

[Last modified August 15, 2007, 22:38:09]