Cold spell claims first two lives in El PasoJuarez area
Jan 07, 2025
JUAREZ, Mexico (Border Report) – Tuesday’s death of a homeless man presumably due to hypothermia has set off alarms in a border city with a large floating population of migrants. A second homeless man died behind a convenience store early Wednesday, also presumably of exposure to the cold.
“We urge everyone to stay warm, especially older adults and the young children, and also to monitor portable heating appliances […] If you detect a malfunction, turn it off or have it checked,” said Sergio Rodriguez, head of Juarez’s Civil Protection office.
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Early Tuesday, Juarez police were called to a sidewalk in front of a business on Calle Galeana, where a man lay dead. A municipal police report states officers were told by witnesses they saw the man the previous night lie down to sleep where his body was later found.
On Wednesday morning, Juarez police were called to an Oxxo convenience store on Vicente Guerrero and Calle Constitucion were a second body was recovered. It was a man who lay on the ground who apparently covered himself with cardboard before going to sleep, police said.
Juarez authorities on Tuesday evening had monitored streets to encourage people milling about the streets to go home or seek shelter.
About 50 individuals – 44 men and a woman – arrived or were taken to a municipal shelter near the Juarez monument park. Although authorities were concerned with any migrant or migrant families possibly not having a place to stay as temperatures dipped toward a freeze, all 50 individuals at the shelter identified themselves as Mexican nationals already in Juarez for some time.
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Earlier in the day, a Honduran man who only identified himself as Bernardo, said he already is staying at a shelter and wasn’t too concerned about the cold. As he went into the community kitchen at Our Lady of Guadalupe Cathedral, he urged reporters trying to interview him to instead tell President-elect Trump not to close the border.