HONDURAS-DISAPPEARED Honduras helps build DNA databank to identify migrants in Mexico massacres

Record ID: 144075

  • Title: HONDURAS-DISAPPEARED Honduras helps build DNA databank to identify migrants in Mexico massacres
  • Date: 13th August 2015
  • Summary: PHOTO OF MISSING SON
  • Embargoed: 28th August 2015 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Mexico
  • Country: Mexico
  • Topics: General
  • Reuters ID: LVA6QL77GMRRSAYOG5HBPLTUW5KH
  • Aspect Ratio: 16:9
  • Story Text: EDITORS PLEASE NOTE: EDIT CONTAINS MATERIAL THAT WAS ORIGINALLY 4:3
    WARNING: EDIT CONTAINS GRAPHIC IMAGES
    Honduras's Foreign Ministry has turned into a makeshift DNA collection bank for family members of citizens who have gone missing whilst trekking overland through Mexico on their way to the United States.
    According to the UNHCR, some 29,400 people have been forced to migrate internally and abroad in Honduras due to a general lack of security in a country infamous for the world's highest homicide rate. It currently stands at more than 85 people per 100,000.
    The United States via Mexico is a common route for Honduras's undocumented migrants braving notorious cartels, corrupt police officers and the stark desert along the U.S. border. However, many don't make it to their final destination, leaving behind worried family members wanting answers on missing loved ones.
    A group of Argentine forensic scientists have gathered in the Honduran capital of Tegucigalpa, hoping to help provide answers on the fate of the missing by building a DNA database from family members of those who have gone missing on the trek north.
    Information is then cross-checked with Honduran and Mexican records, as well as with data in Arizona, California and Texas, to try and identify any matches.
    "We are carrying out interviews to gather as much information as possible about the missing person, about the disappearance, the background of the disappearance, a physical description and we take a sample of blood with a little prick on the finger to process DNA and make comparisons specifically with people who have passed away without being identified along the migration route and along the border," said Carmen Osorno from the Argentine Team of Forensic Anthropology.
    At the height of Mexico's drugs war, horror stories emerged of the rape, kidnapping and murder of Central American migrants passing through the country.
    In December of 2010, armed men kidnapped about 50 Central American migrants in southern Mexico after holding up the cargo train they were riding on.
    Earlier that year, hitmen believed to be from the brutal Zetas drug gang kidnapped and killed 72 migrants at a ranch near the U.S. border. The victims were blindfolded and bound before being lined up against a wall and gunned down, authorities said.
    Between April and June 2011, another 193 dead - many of them thought to be migrants - were found dead in a network of mass graves, again near San Fernando.
    Having crossed into Mexico as undocumented migrants, many of the Central American migrants have still not yet been identified.
    In this rural area of Honduras, Benjamin Aceituno and Ana Rodas want answers on the fate of their son. He left Honduras for the United States and was last heard close to Mexico's northern border.
    "He (son) was alone over there at the border between Mexico and the United States. He called us on May 31 which was the last time he called. He told us that there was no one to help him and so he would try to cross on his own. That was the last time we were in contact and from then we've had no contact with him," said Aceituno.
    Mother Ana Rodas hopes the efforts from the Argentine forensics will help give her some closure.
    "As a mother I want the best in life for him, alive. But only god knows, children are borrowed. If an accident happened and he died, tell me. I hope for the collaboration of institutions to help us (return the body) because we are poor," she told Reuters.
    Countless Latin American migrants journey some 3,000 km (1,900 miles) through Mexico towards the United States, some clinging to the top of cargo trains or hiding in secret compartments built into tractor trailers.
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