Deaths at the U.S. Mexico border have already hit a historic high for the second consecutive year. Nearly 750 migrants have died at the southern border so far this fiscal year, a record that surpasses last year’s total by more than 200 people, according to Department of Homeland Security figures shared with CNN. There is still a month left to go in this fiscal year and officials are warning the death toll will only continue to increase as migrant drownings overwhelm them.
Officials in border town Eagle Pass, Texas are sounding the alarm specifically on the amount of migrants drowning to death. Local mortuaries in the small border town have hit capacity. Mortuaries and funeral homes have requested refrigerators from local fire officials to help store bodies since there is no longer room at their facilities.
“There are so many bodies being recovered that the morticians are asking for assistance,” Eagle Pass Fire Department Chief Manuel Mello III told Fox News. “I had never seen so many drownings like we’re seeing right now.”
Fire officials said deadly crossings through the Rio Grande River are happening on a daily basis. Chief Mello described the water level where migrants cross as below the knee at first, then a few feet over, drops 10 to 12 feet. Chief Mello said the daily recoveries from migrant drownings has been traumatic for his personnel.
“We had a three-month-old baby, we had a three-year-old baby brother that passed away,” Mello told Fox News. “The uncle was trying to cross, he fell into a deep hole in the river, let go of the babies.”
Chief Mello has pleaded for federal officials to visit and see the numbers for themselves. The amount of drownings across this sector of the Rio Grande used to be 12 people a year. Chief Mello said for his designated area, they are on pace to recover 300 migrant bodies this year.