Activists put 5,000 crosses on US-Mexico border fence

TIJUANA - Defenders of emigrants’ rights placed more than 5,000 white crosses on the fence dividing Mexico and the US here to denounce the deaths caused by Operation Guardian run by the US.

The coordinator of the Migrant Defence Coalition, Esmeralda Siu, said that the act seeks to highlight the fatal consequences of the so-called Operation Guardian run almost a decade ago by the US government at its border with Mexico.

Siu said that the total number of crosses is equal to the number of emigrants who have died during this period along Mexico’s northern border with the US.

Uriel Gonzalez, the coordinator of a social organisation named Casa YMCA which helps the minor emigrants, regretted the increasing number of people trying to get into the US and killed.

He also said that the centers under his supervision admit about 4,500 minors per annum repatriated by the US authorities.

Meanwhile, Mary Galvan, a social worker from the Madre Assunta Institute for Emigrant Women and Minors, said that according to the official figures, 371 undocumented emigrants have died in 2009 trying to enter the US through the US state of California.

–EFE