The sheriff of Bexar County received a ‘heartbreaking’ 911 call from a man who said he and about 80 other migrants were trapped in the back of a tanker and struggling to breathe, near San Antonio, Texas. , lined. News on Wednesday.
At about 10pm on February 8, a man called 911 and told the broadcaster that he and other undocumented migrants had been arrested, according to a recording of the call received by CBS News.
“We need help,” the caller said in Spanish. Others could hear calls screaming, crying and breathing heavily during the nearly four minutes.
“We are dying,” the man said, while others could be heard begging for help.
“We no longer have oxygen,” he added.
“How many people are there?” asks the sender shortly thereafter.
“80 people,” the man replied. The sender sounds surprised and asks again, “How much? 80?” – but the call was terminated moments later.
Dispatchers received another call shortly thereafter. The caller told the dispatcher that he and the other migrants were still trapped in the truck and did not know where they were.
“We see nothing, we are inside a tanker,” the man said, adding that he believed the truck was parked next to the road “because cars were passing by.”
“You literally hear people believing they are moments from the dead,” Bexar County Sheriff Javier Salazar told CBS News. Salazar said the calls were “heartbreaking” and left the 911 senders “visibly shaken”.
Local and federal agencies, including immigration and customs enforcement, are investigating the calls. The sheriff of Bexar County released surveillance footage of what he said was the truck in question – but Salazar noted that it was difficult to find a specific white tanker in or around a large city with several highways.
“There is always hope,” Salazar said when asked if the migrants could still be alive two days after they called.
“I can not even imagine what they went through,” he added, expressing concern that the truck driver may have abandoned the vehicle after realizing the seriousness of the situation.
“I do not even want to imagine what would happen if this guy, or people, parked this trailer, walked away from it and left it behind,” he said. “These people are trapped and God knows what is going to happen to them at that point.”
Asked if he thought the calls could be a joke, Salazar said he would “bet the rest of my salaries for the rest of my life that it was not a joke.”
“It was very real, what we heard,” he said.
Salazar noted that “thousands” of people are the victims of human trafficking every day, and said the 911 calls are a “grim reminder” of what these people are facing.
“These people were crammed into this truck so they could find no way out,” he added. “They are at the mercy of these merchants.”
In a broader statement issued on Wednesday on border control numbers, Customs and Border Protection noted the danger of human trafficking.
“All too often, our agents find human remains or encounter lost migrants who are sick, injured, and abandoned by smugglers. We also see migrants being subjected to inhuman conditions locked up in tractor trailers, suitcases, railroads and crowded shelters. is incredibly dangerous, especially in the era of COVID, ‘the agency said.
Camilo Montoya-Galvez reported.