Óscar Andrade, a Pentecostal pastor in Tucson who takes volunteers on grueling desert hikes to find traces of missing migrants for their relatives has found nearly 50 remains since last year.
By Giovanna Dell'Orto The Associated Press IRONWOOD FOREST NATIONAL MONUMENT — After strapping on knee-high snake guards and bowing his head to invoke God’s protection, Óscar Andrade marched off into a remote desert at dawn on a recent Sunday to look for a Honduran migrant. His family said he had gone missing in late July “between the two hills where the backpacks are.”
Border Deaths Body Recovery Chaplains Oscar Andrade, who heads a group that provides recovery efforts for families of missing migrants, compares his photo of a worn shoe next to a … Andrade, his group, and an Associated Press journalist accompanying them among towering saguaro cacti quickly came across evidence of distress on this popular smuggling route – abandoned backpacks, still full of clothes, coins and even deodorant, and half-full water jugs, several days’ walk from the closest towns.
From staging camps guarded by cartel scouts in areas where the border has no fencing or bollard barriers, the migrants – usually men from Mexico and Central America – walk north for more than a week. They have to cross dozens of miles of desert mountains and dry washes before reaching major highways where smugglers’ vehicles will take them to destinations across the United States.
To bring the comfort of God’s word is what motivated Elda Hawkins to be one of the first volunteers to join Andrade’s group, she said at a recent church meeting. A dozen members gathered in a small Tucson church to pray for the young man, receive CPR credentials, and discuss a fundraising food drive.Andrade’s group doesn’t charge families for the searches, though some contribute to the cost of gas for his truck ferrying the group down rough dirt roads to where they set out on foot.
Given how quickly a body decomposes in the desert, unless it’s found within a day of dying, identification might require expensive and time-consuming DNA analysis, Hess said. “This is what forced migration looks like at the end,” he said, standing next to dozens of just-delivered caskets. They were customized with a small viewing window so families can see something of their relative, even if just a small belonging Dabdoub tapes to the glass.
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