79 African, Nepalese migrants arrested in
Nicaragua
Seventy-nine undocumented migrants from Asia
and Africa were arrested in a Nicaraguan
port off the Caribbean Sea, local police
said Sunday.
The migrants from Ethiopia, Eritrea, Somalia
and Nepal said they had arrived by boat at
the eastern port of Bluefields, where their
handlers led them to a hotel, telling them
to wait there for a train. But there are no
trains in Nicaragua.
"We suppose they were brought from Colombia
to the island of San Andres" and were then
transferred to Bluefields, Nicaragua's main
Caribbean port, "from which they had hoped
to continue their journey to the United
States to pursue the American dream," Deputy
Commissioner Rolando Coulson told reporters.
The Colombian island of San Andres, located
off Nicaragua's Caribbean coast, is used as
a transit point for undocumented migrants
headed toward the United States, but many
are cheated of their money and abandoned in
Nicaragua, officials say.
One of the undocumented migrants, Lexman
Khaatri Chhetri, who was arrested late
Saturday, told the authorities he had spent
much of his savings to reach the American
continent. |
