African immigrants risk lives on epic trek to U.S.

This is an amazing story about the struggles these immigrants go through to go from Africa to the U.S. The fact they are from war-torn countries gives them special status when they arrive here. - - Donna Poisl

By Mica Rosenberg, Reuters

TAPACHULA, Mexico (Reuters) - Jailed repeatedly for his political views, Ethiopian immigrant Sharew paid smugglers around $10,000 to move him through a dozen countries and leave him a year later in the grubby southern Mexican city of Tapachula.

Once on Mexico's southern border, which has grown into a major stepping-stone for hundreds of migrants fleeing conflicts in the Horn of Africa, he was still 2,000 miles away from his destination: the United States.

The immigrants, mainly from Ethiopia, Somalia and Eritrea, are increasingly following a new, epic route down the continent to South Africa, across the Atlantic by boat or plane and then a trek overland though South and Central America.

"It is an enormous voyage. They've told us that along the way some lose their lives in Africa because they are attacked, sometimes even by lions," said Jorge Yzar, head of Tapachula's detention center, where dozens of immigrants from all over the world sleep in dormitories before being deported or let go.
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