Venezuelan migrants protest fares to board “La Bestia” train

Venezuelan migrants in Mexico say workers from the Ferromex company charge an average of 1,000 pesos, nearly $60, per person to let them board the cars of the well-known La Bestia train that takes them to the U.S. border.

A group of people currently in a migrant camp south of the capital, Chihuahua, indicated that their journey to the United States has been hampered by the extortion and abuse they experience as they approach Mexico’s northern border.

“The same guards tell us they’re going to stop us on a train going to Juárez, and if we pay them we can get on, and even if we pay, the workers let us take The Beast out. At full speed of the feet,” Sharon, an immigrant in the group, commented to El Heraldo de Juárez newspaper.

Franklin, another of the Venezuelan immigrants, said that not only were they charged to board the wagons, but they threatened to abandon them in the desert or uninhabited areas.

“They leave them in the middle of the street and ask for another 600 pesos to get out of the desert, if not, they stay there like they left in Jimenez,” he added.

The well-known La Bestia train is one of the most used means by immigrants trying to reach the southern border of the United States, despite the dangers they face when boarding the railway. Apart from being extorted, many people have died either by falling from the train or by sustaining serious injuries.

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