How 9 Ghanaians en route to US were rescued in abandoned container in Guatemala

Police in Guatemala over the weekend confirmed that nine Ghanaians were part of 126 illegal migrants abandoned in a shipping container by suspected human traffickers at the side of a road.

An October 9 post on their Twitter handle said police acted after a complaint about an abandoned trailer with persons screaming from inside one of its containers reached their offices.

“Shouts and blows were heard coming from the container, inside it were 126 undocumented people. 109 from Haiti, 11 from Nepal and 9 from Ghana, humanitarian assistance was provided and then they were transferred to the shelters of the Guatemalan Migration Institute,” a translation of their follow-up tweet read.

Police said they suspected that the group had been abandoned by human smugglers at the 114-kilometer route that leads from Cocales to Nueva Concepción, located in the east of the southern American nation.

They were loaded in a header C-193BVB, hooked to the TC007CBH van, police added saying that they believed that the group were being moved through Guatemala to Mexico en route to the United States.

A spokeswoman for the country’s migration body said they believed that the migrants had entered Guatemala from Honduras and will subsequently be returned to authorities in the neighbouring country.

The BBC quoted a police spokesperson as saying: “We heard cries and knocks coming from inside the container. We opened the doors and found inside 126 undocumented people.”

A wave of air travels to southern America was recently reported across Muslim-dominated communities in parts of Accra, especially Nima.

Most of the people who were traveling to Brazil according to reports were aiming to make an onward journey by road from Brazil to the United States.

It is not the first time that Africans, in general, have been reported to have attempted to go through southern America with an eye on entering the US via its southern borders.