The Honduras migrants taking the 'train of death' to the US

Amiredis president José Luís Hernandez Cruz standing at the back of one of Mexico's 'trains of death'. Photo courtesy of Pedro Ultreras.

Some call it 'the train of death', others 'the beast'. Every year, migrants seriously injure themselves after falling from freight trains that they ride through Mexico in pursuit of the American dream. Fearing that other migrants might suffer the same nightmarish fate, victims left mutilated by 'the beast' have rallied together to raise awareness of their plight.

In 2008, a group of Hondurans created the Association of Returned Migrants with Disabilities (Amiredis). It brings together migrants that were forced to go back to Honduras after they fell from trains, suffering horrific injuries that left them without an arm or leg. Every year, hundreds of thousands of people attempt the perilous journey aboard these freight trains that snake through Mexico in the hope of reaching the United States.

Some of the members of Amiredis. Photo sent by José Luís Hernandez Cruz.

"I fell from the train after I had passed out, because I hadn't eaten for several days"

José Luís Hernandez Cruz, 28, is the president of Amiredis.

Like many young people, when I was 18 years old I left Honduras to try to find work in the United States. After crossing Guatemala, I arrived in Mexico. That's when the nightmare began. I was attacked and the little money I had was stolen from me. So I resigned myself to taking the train, because it's the cheapest mode of transport. I climbed aboard ten trains in all. I fell from one of the wagons after I had passed out, because I hadn't eaten or slept for several days. I lost my right leg, my right arm and three fingers of my left hand.

 

I fell from the train near the city of Delicias, in the Mexican state of Chihuahua. I was lucky - at the time a man was passing through the area saw me fall and he helped me. He called an ambulance that arrived a few minutes later. Without him, I would've certainly bled to death, like many migrants do.

"I wanted to help my family, but after my accident I understood that I was going to become a burden on them"

When I realised the state that was I in, I couldn't stop crying. I thought about my family: I had wanted to help them by making money in the United States, but at that moment I understood that I was going to become a burden on them. All my dreams fell apart.

 

Amiredis president José Luís Hernandez Cruz. Photo sent by himself.

I was hospitalised for almost two years in Mexico, in three different hospitals. They gave me a prosthetic leg. I was lucky, because normally migrants are quickly sent back home as soon as their injuries heal up. My dad even received a special visa to come and look after me at the hospital during the two years that I underwent treatment.

 

"Hundreds of Hondurans have been left mutilated after falling from trains"

 

My story is the same as that of many other migrants. In Honduras, hundreds of people have been left mutilated after falling from these trains [Editor's note: in 2014, Mexico's Veracruz state estimated that roughly one migrant was being left mutilated every two or three days, having fallen from 'the beast']. In four years, 332 migrants' bodies have also been sent back home. And more than 3,000 migrants have gone missing in the space of 20 or so years.

Crossing Mexico is extremely dangerous. Drug cartels kidnap migrants, most often to force them to work for them as drug 'mules' [Editor's note: A 'mule' is someone tasked with the dangerous job of smuggling drugs across the border]. Up to 80% of migrants are raped, and some find themselves caught up in prostitution rings run by organised crime groups.

 

On February 25, 17 members of Amiredis set out once again to undertake the same trip from Honduras to the United States. But this time, the goal was to raise public awareness of the horrors that migrants face while making the journey. They crossed Guatemala and Mexico, before reaching the United States on March 19.

 

Members of Amiredis in Mexico during their campaign to raise public awareness of the risks faced by migrants that try to reach the United States. Photo courtesy of Pedro Ultreras.

 

"We would like to see the United States investing more money in Central America, to help create jobs"

 

With Amiredis, we undertook this journey in the hope that by doing so other migrants might avoid the same nightmarish fate as us. I'll never get my arm or my leg back... but it's still possible to reduce the number of people who end up dead, mutilated or raped.

 

Our goal is to meet Barack Obama in Washington, even if we don't yet know if he would agree to see us. The United States invests insane amounts of money in order to reinforce its border with Mexico, whilst treating migrants as nothing more than criminals. Instead of carrying on with this policy - which hardly dissuades migrants from coming anyway - we would like to see the United States investing more money in Central America, to help create jobs. The root of the problem must be addressed: that is to say, we'd like to be able to find jobs in our own countries instead of having to go to the United States, a place many youths still see as the 'promised land'.

Other than unemployment, thousands of people leave Honduras because it's one of the most violent countries on the planet, with firmly entrenched criminal networks [Editor's note: According to the United Nations, Honduras tops the list of the world's most murderous countries, with 90 homicides per 100,000 people]. There is lots of poverty and few opportunities for young people.

We'd also like Washington to put pressure on our government to take better care of its people. Hondurans living abroad send millions of dollars back home every year [Editor's note: In 2014, this amounted to no less than 18% of the country’s GDP, according to the Inter-American Development Bank]. That's all the government cares about. But they don't concern themselves with the human misery caused by migration, just as the United States doesn't worry about the consequences caused by their migration policies.

 

"We were held in detention for almost a month and a half in the United States"

When we left Honduras with the other members of the organisation at the end of February, we had hardly any provisions, even though we fundraised a little bit of money. As a result, during the journey we had no other choice but to sleep on the ground on piles of cardboard boxes. We made the journey the same way most other migrants do: without money and illegally.

 

Photo sent by José Luís Hernandez Cruz.

 

Having crossed Guatemala by bus, we arrived at the Mexican border. We didn't have visas, but we explained why we wanted to cross the country. And they let us through... [Editor's note: This time, however, the migrants took the bus instead of the train to cross Mexico].

 

But that didn't work at the United States border. We arrived on March 19 and they arrested us straight away. There were just 13 of us left in the group at that moment. Four of our members had already gone back to Honduras because the journey had been too difficult. Three people in our group were expelled at once. That left only ten of us [Editor's note: The ten migrants avoided the same fate as the other three by asking for refugee status with the help of 'Refugee and Immigrant Centre for Education and Legal Services' (Raices), an NGO that supports migrants].

We were then transferred to a detention centre in Pearsall, where we were held for about a month and a half. The fact that we were disabled didn't change a thing. They treated us badly [Editor's note: Raices says that neither bandages, prosthetic socks, nor products to clean the prostheses were provided to the migrants, and that all of them lost weight.] I even went on hunger strike for a week to protest the fact that I had been put in isolation.

 

The delegation from Amiredis in Birmingham, Alabama. Photo posted on the group's Facebook page.

We were finally able to continue our journey after we were granted asylum, but also thanks in part to private donations of money... Now, we've just arrived in Atlanta, Georgia.

Post written with FRANCE 24 journalist Chloé Lauvergnier (@clauvergnier).