Mexico's maras victimize migrants

Read Sam Logan of ISN-Security Watch describing how migrants trying to make their way to the United States from Central America and southern Mexico are victimized all the way along the path, well before they get to the United States. Says Logan, demands by the United States that Mexico strengthen security on its northern perimeter has

taken much needed resources from Mexico’s southern border between Guatemala and the Mexican state of Chiapas. The city of Tapachula, the second most populated urban center in Chiapas, is at the center of a clandestine world of illegal migration, human smuggling and prostitution.

Mexican authorities in 2005 reported that at least 3,000 members of Central American street gangs, known locally as “maras” or “pandilleros,” prey on illegal migrants passing through the state.

Read the whole thing for a rare depiction of the nearly unimaginable travails facing migrants traveling through southern Mexico.

I should also mention that Logan's reports routinely contain information I'm just not seeing published anywhere else, so good job, Sam.