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Las Patronas also run a shelter where weary migrants can get a hot meal, a bed, bathe, wash their clothes and receive medical attention.
Among those staying for a few days to rest and gather their strength is Guadalupe, a Salvadoran migrant travelling with her 17-year-old daughter Nicole. She says they won’t travel on La Bestia again, having twice been taken off the freight train by immigration officers.
The experience, she recalls, was brutal.
“They hit a lot of people who were with us and gave others electric shocks with tasers. They almost tasered me too. That was the worst experience we’ve had here in Mexico.”
Given the threat of kidnappings, sexual abuse and extortion by the country’s drug cartels, traversing Mexico is one of the most fraught parts of a journey which, for some, began in the Andes or the Caribbean.
Often though, says Guadalupe, they’re extorted by migration and security officials, the very men and women charged with upholding the law in Mexico.
“Once they take us off the train, many migration officers demand bribes from us. If we have enough money, we can pass. This time, we didn’t, and they sent us back to the border with Guatemala. That was the hardest thing.”
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