Eight US-bound migrants drown in southern Nicaragua

MANAGUA: The decomposing bodies of eight undocumented migrants apparently headed to the US have been found in Nicaragua's vast southern freshwater Lake Nicaragua, a police official told AFP Tuesday.
"They died by drowning. We believe they were Africans going by the colour of their skin," said Mirian Rugma, of the Rivas regional police force.
However, an official dealing with migration issues told AFP in neighbouring Costa Rica on condition of anonymity that "the odds are the drowned migrants are Haitians."
He said the majority of migrants in Costa Rica seeking to cross into Nicaragua were from the Caribbean island state.
They often try to pass as Africans in hopes of boosting their chances of receiving US asylum.
The bodies recovered in Nicaragua were those of seven men and a pregnant woman. Police said they were presumed to be headed for the United States.
They were found between Sunday and Tuesday floating near the southern shore of Lake Nicaragua, 3km from the border with Costa Rica.
Rugma, speaking by telephone, said it was thought they had entered the country by boat from a cross-border river that feeds into the lake.
Since November last year, Nicaragua has bolstered security along its southern border with Costa Rica to keep out undocumented migrants.
As a result, there are about 2,500 migrants staying in tents, schools, charity shelters, church properties and cheap hotels in Costa Rica, looking for ways to cross through to Nicaragua and continue north.
According to the International Organization for Migration, around 10% of the migrants are Pakistanis and Afghans aiming to get to the United States after EU countries this year made it much more difficult to get in.
To get past the Nicaragua border, some migrants are turning to people smugglers who are charging them more than US$1,000 each.
The commander for Nicaragua's military in the south of country, Colonel Alberto Larios, told La Prensa newspaper that migrants were looking for blind spots along the border and some were attempting to cross Lake Nicaragua by boat. — AFP