Rights groups distribute maps for Mexicans crossing into Arizona

Published: 2006-01-25

MEXICO CITY (CNS) -- A faith-based humanitarian group from Arizona is joining forces with Mexico's national human rights watchdog to distribute maps that help migrants crossing the border find lifesaving water tanks in the Arizona desert. The Tucson-based group Humane Borders, whose numbers largely come from area churches, including Catholic parishes, hopes the topographical maps, which show major landmarks as well as locations of water stations left by the group, will reduce the number of dehydration deaths each year in southern Arizona, where temperatures can reach 120 degrees. The maps also show walking distances from the border, marked with concentric circles that represent one, two and three days of walking, as well as hundreds of tiny red circles indicating areas where migrants are known to have died. The circles form nearly solid patches of red in some areas three days' walk into Arizona. "Many migrants don't know what they're going to face when they cross the border," said the Rev. Robin Hoover, pastor of Tucson's First Christian Church and president of Humane Borders, at a late-January press conference in Mexico City.

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