More Ecuadorians leaving for US amid ‘burst in migration’
Al Jazeera
Rights advocates urge Ecuador to address root causes of migration as thousands set out on perilous journeys towards US.
Quito, Ecuador – Jazmin Lema set out from Ecuador in late August with her two-year-old daughter and her partner, Anthony, in hopes of joining her mother in New York City.
But as they travelled by bus towards Tijuana, a key migration point in northern Mexico, the smuggler they paid to bring them to the United States told the group to trek on foot around a checkpoint in the Sonora state desert to avoid detection.
Lema, who is believed to have suffered from dehydration, died on August 26, Ecuador’s foreign affairs ministry confirmed this month. The ministry told Al Jazeera that Mexican officials are still determining her exact cause of death.
