Border deaths hit 10-year high after record heat

PHOENIX » A project that maps the bodies of border-crossers recovered from Arizona’s inhospitable deserts, valleys and mountains said it documented 227 deaths in 2020, the highest in a decade after the hottest, driest summer in state history. The previous annual high mapped by the Pima County Medical Examiner’s Office in Tucson and the nonprofit Humane Borders was 224migrant deaths in2010. Enforcement efforts in California and Texas over the years have pushed migrants into dangerous terrain in Arizona without easy access to food and water. Humanitarian groups like No More Deaths leave water jugs and other provisions in remote parts of southern Arizona in hopes of saving lives.