Border Patrol finds 4 bodies in Sunland Park desert as death toll rises

U.S. Border Patrol agents found four bodies in the desert surrounding Sunland Park, New Mexico, among about 20 lives lost in the area in just over a month.

As day-after-day of 100-degree heat continues to blanket the Borderland, deaths in the desert are being discovered every few days in the border migrant smuggling zone in New Mexico, just west of El Paso.

The Sunland Park Fire Department said on X that the bodies found on Monday, June 1, were located in the desert between the 5600 block of McNutt Road and Bi-National Avenue, which is near the Santa Teresa border crossing on the U.S.-Mexico border.

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The deaths are under investigation by the Doña Ana County Sheriff's Office, the Sunland Park Police Department and the New Mexico Office of the Medical Investigator.

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The identities of the deceased have not been disclosed, but they were likely undocumented migrants, who have been known to perish due to heat stroke after getting disoriented and lost in the desert after crossing the border wall.

There have been about 20 deaths in the Sunland Park area since the end of May, according to a rough estimate of reported cases, including three people who died in the Rio Grande on June 25 at the edge of Texas and New Mexico.

This article originally appeared on El Paso Times: Border Patrol finds 4 bodies in Sunland Park desert as death toll rises