Professor, Students Help Identify Bodies of Migrants Trying to Enter US from Mexico Shari Rudavsky - IndyStar
go to original June 27, 2013

University of Indianapolis forensic anthropologist Krista Latham (left) joined Lori Baker from Baylor University in leading the exhumation of unidentified immigrants from a cemetery in Falfurrias, Texas. Most of them died from heat exhaustion while crossing illegally from Mexico into the United . The bodies will be examined and cross checked with DNA sent from Mexico and Central American countries, with the goal of reuniting the remains with families. (John Moore/Getty Images)

For University of Indianapolis professor Krista Latham, the field of forensics isn’t just science. It’s also human rights.

The anthropologist and four of her graduate students recently spent a week at a rural Texas cemetery, helping exhume the bodies of unidentified migrants buried there. Their efforts are the first step to name these anonymous individuals, who lost their identities and lives while trying to enter the United .

Working along with volunteers from Baylor University, the University of Indianapolis crew unearthed 63 unidentified bodies over the course of a week in May in the unrelenting Texas heat.

“This number of bodies is what you would get with a mass disaster situation,” Latham said. “We looked at this more as a human rights mission.”

Read the rest at IndyStar

We invite you to add your charity or supporting organizations' news stories and coming events to PVAngels so we can share them with the world. Do it now!