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Honduran teenage migrant dies in US government custody

Families from Central America sit along the roadside as they wait to be transported to a US border patrol processing facility after crossing the Rio Grande River into the United States from Mexico. (File photo by Reuters)

A teenage migrant who arrived unaccompanied in the United States from Honduras has died in government custody.

In a statement issued on Friday, the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) admitted the death of the 17-year-old at a US migrant detention center in Florida.

The Honduran foreign affairs office identified the boy as Ángel Eduardo Maradiaga Espinoza.

The teen arrived in the US without a parent or guardian on May 5, 2023.

US officials said they were investigating the death of the teen, adding that the cause of his demise has yet to be determined.

Since 2018, at least eight unaccompanied refugee children have died at the migrant detention camps set up by the US government.

Medical professionals point to the underlying health conditions of the children, who mostly hail from Central America -- worsened by the arduous journey to reach the US with little access to clean shelter and proper provisions on the trip -- as the main factors causing the deaths.

"Children are not like adults. They get sick more quickly and each hour of delay can be associated with serious complications," said Dr. Julie Linton, co-chair of the immigrant health special interest group at the American Academy of Pediatrics, in an interview with US media.

Eskinder Negash, president of the US Committee for Refugees and Immigrants, a non-profit organization based in Virginia, said most of the asylum seekers who head to the US borders are fleeing poverty and gang violence, and have a lack of education due to the backwardness of the states rooted in US imperialism.

“All of them are vulnerable,” he said, noting that many of the girls report being raped during the perilous journey to the US in the hope of a better life.

“They travel hundreds of miles; they are not coming here because they want to go to Disneyland,” Negash said. “They come here because they have a well-founded fear of violence in their country, their governments, or gangs. If that’s not vulnerable then I don’t know what is.”

The Honduran boy was fleeing from "the hell" created for them over decades by US leaders who openly pursued "regime change" operations in Latin American countries to install puppet regimes and create banana republics, analysts said.  

US leaders viewed Latin America as Washingtonian's backyard with the Monroe Doctrine justifying any overt or covert military action in Mexico, Honduras, Guatemala, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Venezuela, and Cuba as well as other Latin American countries.  

Myles Hoenig, an American political analyst and activist, told Press TV that immigrants who come to the US “are being deprived, not just of basic human rights and their dignity, but the rule of law and our historical responsibility.”

 


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