The migrants who fled violence for the US only to be sent back to their deaths
America's refugee crisis: death, danger and the border crackdown
The migrants who fled violence for the US only to be sent back to their deaths
Every year thousands of Hondurans come to the US in search of a better life and safety yet for a growing number of young men, the return home makes them prime targets for gang retaliations as murder rate surges
Sibylla Brodzinsky in San Pedro Sula
Monday 12 October 2015 08.34 EDT
When Antonio Díazs 26-year-old son Oscar was kidnapped, beaten and left for dead by gang members, the Honduran father decided to send Oscar and his three brothers to the United States, fearing that any one of them could be the next victim of the countrys swelling wave of violence.
I sent them away for their safety, says Díaz, sitting in a comfortable and well-furnished three-bedroom home in a town outside San Pedro Sula, where he owns a fleet of minibuses. Were not bad off here, economically, but I couldnt bear the thought of my sons getting killed, he says.
A year and a half after Antonio paid the $6,000 coyote fee for each of his sons to make the perilous overland journey to the United States as undocumented migrants, one of the young men Ángel was deported back to Honduras.
A month later he was dead, gunned down on one of his fathers buses by suspected gang members.
More:
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/oct/12/deportation-migrants-flee-honduras-guatemala-salvador