/Pregnant Guatemalan woman dies after fall from border wall

Pregnant Guatemalan woman dies after fall from border wall

An eight-month pregnant Guatemalan woman died in Texas this week after falling while climbing the wall at the U.S. southern border, Customs and Border Protection said Thursday.

The 19-year-old woman was found by Border Patrol in Clint, Texas, on Saturday and a man who was with her told the agents she fell from the steel mesh border wall and landed on her back, the agency said in a statement.

The agents contacted Emergency Medical Services and took the woman to a local hospital where “she underwent emergency medical intervention including an emergency C-section,” CBP said.

“Despite the best efforts of medical personnel, her unborn child did not survive,” the agency said.

The woman died Tuesday in a hospital in Texas after multiple surgeries to treat her injuries, CBP said.

El Paso Sector Chief Gloria Chavez said in the statement that “sadly more lives have perished at the hands of human smugglers.”

“Someone in Mexico guided this eight-month pregnant woman from Guatemala to this section of the border and encouraged her and helped her climb the steel mesh border barrier,” she said. “We will engage our law enforcement partners in Mexico to find those responsible for placing these lives in danger.”

CBP’s Office of Professional Accountability has initiated a review of the incident and the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of the Inspector General and the Guatemalan government have been notified, the agency said.

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