United Nations: Drowning second highest cause of death for migrants trying to enter U.S.

The death of two Guatemalan migrant children who drowned to death on Tuesday is shining a light on the continued tragedies taking place at the Rio Grande river that separates Mexico and Texas.

Reports indicate one of the deceased children was a 5-year-old girl from Guatemala who was pulled away from her mother by a current that swept through the river while a third child, a two month old, remains in critical condition.

The incident went viral after video shot by a Mexican television news network captured the traffic event as the little one was pulled down the river in an area near El Paso, Texas. Some on the Mexican side of the river made desperate attempts to save the surviving mother with photos depicting heartbreaking, but courageous imagery.

The tragic incident has gone viral in the United States and even turned attention to data compiled by international organizations that say the threat drowning has become a fierce threat to migrants trying to cross the border.

Local news reports indicated the victims were part of a small caravan of migrants who apparently didn’t realize the power of the river’s current as they tried to make their way into the United States.  

Data published by the United Nations’ International Organization for Migration say drowning is the second highest cause of death for migrants trying to cross the border in the U.S.

The U.N. has tallied 3,339 migrants who died or went missing while trying to sneak into America since 2014, with 595 last year, according to its website. That number supersedes the 371 who died in 2020 when President Trump left office.

According to the Washington Examiner, migrant deaths peaked to 609 fatalities for the first nine months of fiscal year 2022, 43 more than the entire fiscal year of 2021. U.S. Customs and Border Protection data shows that’s more than the previous record of 566 deaths counter last fiscal year in 2021.

“The way it’s going, we could hit 700 pretty soon,” a senior Border Patrol official told the Examiner.

The New York Post also reported a separate tragedy on Monday in which another group of migrants tried to cross the river near Eagle Pass, Texas.

In that case, a 3-year old boy drowned, but an infant was rescued after receiving CPR from a U.S. Border Patrol agent. That infant remains in critical condition at a San Antonio hospital, the Post reported.

In an interview with the Post, Fernando Garcia, the executive director of an El Paso immigrant advocacy group called the Border Network for Human Rights expressed his frustration over the sad events.

“What you don’t see is an outcry in America — why do children have to die?” he said saying that many migrant parents face a difficult “personal decision.”

“They do it because of their children… so their children don’t grow up where they will die of hunger, poverty or disease if they stay. Or violence,” he said.

“It is not easy. The poverty in these countries, it’s a kind of poverty most Americans do not know. It’s very difficult to think what the mother is going through right now. She’s in a lot of pain and probably she’s asking herself questions. One of the questions is, ‘Why?'” he said. “This self-guilt — it is unbearable and unthinkable pain.”

Reports indicate that authorities expect more than 2 million migrants to have crossed or made attempts to cross the border by this fiscal year’s end on Sept. 30.