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Spinal Cord Injury News - Return to Menu

Rollover kills 9 migrants

Officials: Smuggler tried to escape

Susan Carroll
Republic Tucson Bureau
August. 8, 2006 - Nine undocumented immigrants were killed and five seriously injured Monday after a suspected smuggler tried to evade capture outside of Yuma and rolled an SUV carrying 22 people, authorities said.

The crash early Monday was one of the deadliest in recent years on Arizona's highways involving undocumented immigrants, Border Patrol officials said. The driver of a Chevrolet Suburban carrying the 22 men and women tried to avoid a spike strip set out by a Border Patrol agent and lost control on Martinez Lake Road about 20 miles north of Yuma at 6:50 a.m., Yuma County sheriff's Maj. Leon Wilmot said.

Lloyd Frers, a spokesman for the El Centro, Calif., sector of the Border Patrol, said the SUV's driver spotted a checkpoint, turned the vehicle around toward U.S. 95 and started the chain of events that led to the crash. El Centro sector personnel were assisting agents in Yuma as part of the Arizona Border Control Initiative, which drew hundreds of agents from across the country to help out in one of the busiest stretches of the U.S.-Mexican border.

Five people were pronounced dead along the road, and four more died at Yuma Regional Medical Center. Six of the dead were women. Five others, including the driver, were flown to Phoenix because of the severity of their injuries, Frers added. Thirteen suffered differing degrees of injury, officials said. Officials did not know to which hospitals all of the injured were sent.

Wilmot said investigators were still at the site of the rollover in northern Yuma County late Monday afternoon, piecing together what led to the accident. El Centro Border Patrol officials said they have started an internal investigation.

Miguel Escobar Valdez, the Mexican consul in Yuma, said the Mexican government was working to identify and repatriate the dead and requested an investigation into the wreck.

"We're asking for clarification on the circumstances that led to this happening," Escobar said.

Border Patrol officials said multifatality crashes have become more common in recent years as smugglers overload vehicles, making them unstable at high speeds. In April, four undocumented immigrants were killed and 21 injured when a stolen truck rolled near Sonoita. In October 2004, a rollover crash near Sierra Vista killed six, including an unborn baby.

This fiscal year, which started Oct. 1, the Border Patrol in Yuma has counted 26 deaths, not including the nine Monday.