Caitlin Dickerson, Simon Romero and Zolan Kanno-Youngs

The accident came to light around 9:45 p.m. Central time on Wednesday when Border Patrol agents near Del Rio, Texas, apprehended a man who told them he had been crossing the Rio Grande with his family in an attempt to enter the United States when their raft overturned in the water, spilling its nine passengers into the river. The man said that he saw his 10-month-old child and 7-year-old nephew, as well as another man and that man’s daughter, swept away by the water.

The agents then heard screaming from the river and saw two people struggling in the water close to a raft. The man they had apprehended identified them as his wife and 6-year-old daughter. Agents entered the water and pulled the mother and child ashore, and began searching for the others who had been aboard the raft.

Two other passengers who had been aboard the raft, another man and his 13-year-old son, were later found on the U.S. side of the river. By Thursday morning, the agents were still searching for the four passengers who had not been recovered.

The chaotic episode highlights the rising death toll as migrants from Central America try to cross the border with Mexico in efforts to request asylum in the United States. Two detained migrant children from Guatemala died in December while in Border Patrol custody, and a 16-year-old boy from Guatemala died earlier this week in Texas after arriving at a shelter for unaccompanied children.

Raft crossings into Texas are a common form of transit into the United States, with the Rio Grande Valley sector being consistently the Border Patrol’s busiest. With springtime water levels relatively high, the water is fast-moving in the area near Del Rio, said an official with Customs and Border Protection, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the raft accident. Rescues are common because many of those attempting to cross have little, if any, experience with swimming, the official said, and crossing the river at night, as this group had, is particularly dangerous.

The river is patrolled regularly by Border Patrol agents, but migrants attempting to cross are often advised by smugglers to do so in areas that are difficult for the agents to see because they are obscured by trees or other natural barriers — making an accident such as an overturned raft in those areas even more dangerous as it can go unobserved by the authorities.

The five people who survived Wednesday’s accident were from Central America, leading agents to believe that the missing migrants were also Central American.

The leading theory among Border Patrol agents was that the four missing migrants were dead, according to an official from the Department of Homeland Security, who was not authorized to speak because of the preliminary nature of the investigation.

The five other migrants on the raft were given medical attention and brought to a nearby hospital, the official said.

Most migrant deaths on America’s southwest border occur on land. From October 1997 to September 2018, the Border Patrol recorded 7,505 migrant deaths in its nine sectors, and the vast majority consisted of the bodies and remains of migrants who died from dehydration and exposure to the elements while hiking through the desert or the brush.

But a large number of those deaths were men, women and children who drowned while crossing the Rio Grande. In Hidalgo County, part of the Rio Grande Valley sector, sheriff’s officials reported 27 migrant waterway deaths last year, an increase from 13 in 2017.

Along other parts of the border, drownings and near-drownings are common in irrigation canals.

In February, Border Patrol agents near Yuma, Arizona, heard calls for help coming from the Salinity Canal and rushed to rescue six Hondurans struggling to stay afloat. Four of the six people rescued were children and teenagers. Migrants struggling to swim are also frequently pulled from the All-American Canal in California.

This article originally appeared in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/02/us/migrants-missing-rio-grande.html" id="98b75456-9f7f-3e5a-a1cf-190e1c2e0262">The New York Times</a>.

Four migrants, including an infant and two children, were feared dead in Texas on Thursday after a raft overturned while attempting to cross the Rio Grande, federal authorities said.

Four Migrants, Including Three Children, Feared Dead in Texas Raft Tragedy

Most migrant deaths on America’s southwest border occur on land. From October 1997 to September 2018, the Border Patrol recorded 7,505 migrant deaths in its nine sectors, and the vast majority consisted of the bodies and remains of migrants who died from dehydration and exposure to the elements while hiking through the desert or the brush. But a large number of those deaths were men, women and children who drowned while crossing the Rio Grande.

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Caitlin Dickerson, Simon Romero and Zolan Kanno-Youngs

Articles written by the author

Four Migrants, Including Three Children, Feared Dead in Texas Raft Tragedy

Four Migrants, Including Three Children, Feared Dead in Texas Raft Tragedy