Transport Ministry Reclaims Migrant-Shuttling 'The Beast' Railroad Concession Gabriel Stargardter - Thomson Reuters Foundation | |
go to original August 24, 2016 |
Five Hondurans whose arms or legs were severed by the Beast while traveling through Mexico toward the U.S. border recounted their ordeal in Miami this month. (Miami Herald)
Mexico's Communications and Transport Ministry says it had taken over a concession to a southern railroad, whose trains are known locally as "The Beast," which thousands of Central American migrants have used to hitch rides to the United States.
The ministry scrapped the concession, which had belonged to the Ferrocarriles Chiapas-Mayab rail company, on the grounds of "public interest, public usage and national security," it said in a statement, without elaborating.
Ferrocarriles Chiapas-Mayab had been trying to wash its hands of the concession since at least 2007, according to a more-detailed account in the official government gazette.
The Chiapas-Mayab railroad, which has suffered from chronic underinvestment, begins in the southern state of Chiapas and connects with a network of freight trains that head northward.
For years, Central American migrants headed for the United States have illegally used "La Bestia," or "The Beast," to travel through Mexico.
However, after a surge in the number of U.S.-bound child migrants in 2014, Mexico clamped down, making it harder for migrants to jump aboard the freight train.
Officials said images of migrants riding on top of the trains, which were hotbeds of criminal activity, were a major embarrassment to Mexico internationally.
The flow of migrants now atop the trains is down about 90 percent from 2014 levels, officials said.
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