Migrants risk their lives in the dunes of the Chihuahua Desert, on the northern border of Mexico, which has become a popular route in the middle of summer and with record temperatures above 40 degrees, to avoid the increasing operations of the Mexican and US governments.

One of the migrants captured by EFE cameras as they left the dunes before crossing the Sierra de Samalayuca shared that their goal is to overcome one of the most difficult stretches of the migration route, the final 50 kilometers before reaching the border with the United States.

“We crossed the desert because of immigration, because they stopped us, we don’t have a Mexican permit. Thank God, I had a bit of resistance and the water and everything,” said Giovanni Alpizar, who did not want to reveal his nationality and crossed an 8-kilometer stretch of dunes with two other companions in temperatures of 41 degrees.

With this route, the 32-year-old migrant hoped to evade a roadblock of military personnel and agents from the National Institute of Migration (INM) located 50 kilometers south of Ciudad Juárez, on the border with the US city of El Paso.

Migrants take risks to cross from Mexico to the US

The developments come following a more than 70% drop in daily migrant arrests at the U.S.-Mexico border since the peak last December, Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said last month.

In addition, irregular migration intercepted by Mexico rose by nearly 650% year-on-year to a record of nearly 1.4 million from January to May, the National Migration Institute (INM) reported in June.

Father Juan Carlos López, spokesman for the Diocese of Ciudad Juárez, said that authorities from both countries should coordinate humane operations to prevent migrants from taking these types of risks, especially now with the summer and the flooding of the Rio Bravo (or Grande) on the border with sudden rains.

“It is sad to see people, human beings, ultimately brothers and sisters because of our human condition, dying in these circumstances, whether in the desert or in the river, it is very regrettable,” said the priest.

The most dangerous border in the world

The International Organization for Migration (IOM) declared the border between Mexico and the United States last September as “the most dangerous land migration route in the world,” with more than 686 migrants dead or missing in 2022.

The priest asked the “authorities, both on the Mexican and North American sides, to organize projects” and campaigns to prevent the deaths of migrants.

“We have had rain in nearby areas and that has increased the flow of the Rio Grande, making it more dangerous and yet they dare to risk losing their lives. The heat in our area is very strong so in the desert that is risking your life,” he said.

A report by U.S. authorities indicated that in the first three weeks of June alone, a total of 25 migrants died in the desert from dehydration or drowning while trying to cross the Rio Grande, while another 35 were rescued from such dangers.

Mexico / EFE

In the mentioned area, the woman fell and suffered numerous injuries that ended her life. Three of her cousins, who were also experienced skiers, accompanied her The Firewoods.

Zoe was well-known in the world of sports and taught at the Las Leñas school, the same one that instilled in her the passion and skill for this activity since she was a child. Additionally, she was known on Instagram, where she shared her long stays in different countries around the world, demonstrating her expertise in skiing.

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A family marked by tragedy

The event shocked Mendoza society. The family had already experienced another well-known tragedy: Zoe’s sister, Azul, is in the San Andrés Foundation in a coma following suffering a car accident that occurred on December 8, 2016.

Azul was riding as a passenger in a van that crashed into a tree on Terrada Street near Boedo de Luján. She suffered a head injury with loss of consciousness and was taken to the Spanish Hospital in Godoy Cruz. The driver was also injured but not seriously, as was another friend who was traveling with them.

The young woman is currently 27 years old. Patricia Girotti, her mother, plants trees for the love of nature, inspired by it. In fact, she has carried out numerous campaigns in Mendoza since 2017, when she decided it was time to turn over a new leaf in her life for her daughter.

Azul was like her sister Zoe. An athlete, ski instructor, and snow and mountain enthusiast.

What happened at the Las Leñas ski resort

Zoe Argerich, a native of Mendoza 24 years old, died this Tuesday while skiing off-piste in the Valley of The Firewoods, in an area known as Eduardo, according to the Ministry of Security.

The young woman was originally from Luján de Cuyo and traveled around Europe and the United States on a seasonal basis.

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The incident was reported by a skier, who called the 24th Police Station of the same resort around 3:40 p.m., indicating that a woman had suffered an accident while skiing. She was apparently accompanied at that time by two friends who witnessed the moments before the tragedy.

According to the account of one of them, the young instructor would have been distracted and lost control while crossing a sheet of ice.

Minutes before 5 p.m., the staff at the complex’s health center confirmed her death from “polytrauma due to a fall from a mountain and subsequent death.”

The victim’s body will be transferred to the judicial morgue of San Rafael for the performance of the corresponding autopsy.

In this tragic case, the prosecutor Andrea Llorente intervened.

Missiles fired from Lebanon killed two people in the occupied Syrian Golan, Israeli police announced on Tuesday, the latest in a series of bombings for months between Hezbollah and Israeli forces.

Shortly following the two deaths, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights announced that at least two people were killed in an Israeli bombing targeting a Hezbollah vehicle in Syria.

One of the two people killed in the Israeli attack had previously served as a bodyguard for Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah, according to sources close to Hezbollah.

The Israeli military said that “approximately 40 rockets were detected fired from Lebanon towards the central Golan Heights, some of which landed in the area.”

“The attack resulted in the death of a man and a woman on the spot” following their car was hit directly, Golan Police Chief Haim Bitton said.

He noted that the fire brigade was working to extinguish several fires in the area.

Hezbollah announced in a statement that “in response to the enemy’s attacks and assassinations on the road from Damascus to Beirut, it used dozens of Katyusha rockets to bombard the 210th Golan Division located at the Nafa base. Headquarters.

“Israeli drones bombed a Hezbollah vehicle in the Jededet Yabos area on the eastern border, killing at least two people,” Observatory Director Rami Abdel Rahman told AFP. People died and a third were injured” Lebanon.

A source close to Hezbollah told AFP that a former personal companion of Nasrallah was killed in an Israeli attack but asked not to be named.

Later, Hezbollah expressed its condolences for the deceased.

On Tuesday, Hezbollah released a video that included scenes purportedly filmed by a reconnaissance aircraft showing Israeli military and security locations in the occupied Syrian Golan.

Israel occupied the Golan Heights in 1967 and annexed it in 1981, a move that was not recognized by the international community.

Nasrallah is scheduled to speak on Wednesday followingnoon at a memorial service for one of his party’s prominent military leaders, who was killed in an Israeli attack in southern Lebanon last week.