EL PASO, Texas (Border Report) – Police in Juarez, Mexico, are waiting for a Venezuelan migrant to recover from injuries to ask who assaulted him, wrapped him in a blanket and left him near the Rio Grande, assuming he was dead.
At around 5:45 p.m. Wednesday, police responded to reports of a body “dumped” in a vacant lot at the corner of Arizona Street and Cuatro Siglos Boulevard, which runs parallel to the Rio Grande. The spot is within walking distance of the river and Gate 36 of the U.S. border wall in El Paso, Texas.
According to a police report, municipal police officers who arrived on the scene noticed something inside the blanket “was moving.” They pulled it aside and found a man with bruises and other signs of violence but otherwise alive. They called an ambulance to transport the victim to a local hospital.
Police told a Border Report/KTSM camera crew the injured party is a Venezuelan migrant named Hector. The police report states that witnesses who called 911 told Juarez police they saw men in a vehicle stop at the lot and “dump a body.”
Juarez police and paramedics confer over the “body” of a badly beaten Venezuelan migrant who turned out to be still alive late Wednesday afternoon near the Rio Grande and Gate 36 of the border wall in El Paso.
No other official information on the case was immediately available. However, some Juarez news portals reported the migrant was beaten by smugglers and left near the river, given up for dead.
Gate 36 for more than a year has been the preferred entry point for migrants who cross the Rio Grande from Juarez to surrender to U.S. authorities and claim asylum.
