Robbed

There was a steady breeze at camp last Saturday, no clouds, only sun, raising temperatures up towards 95 degrees.

In the early afternoon a group of six men walked in.  They had been in the desert for eight or nine days and were now on their way south.  They had turned around the day before, thinking they couldn't make it.
Two days before they arrived in camp they had been robbed by bandits, south, in the mountains.  Some members of the groups still had a few possessions on them, but most were without their bags, without any water or food for two days.
Of the six, one man, Joseph, had been beaten by the group of bandits.  He had a golf ball sized welt on his forehead, pale purple, and a bruised rib, tender to the touch.  He claimed to have no trouble breathing, so we wrapped it together, iced his head and he took some pain medication.  He repeatedly made hand gestures that he had been beaten with the butt of a gun.
The morning before, Friday, a man stumbled into camp just after sunrise.  He had been shot in the foot two days before while being robbed and now had his t-shirt wrapped around the wound, soaked in blood.  After having the wound cleaned and wrapped the man was evacuated in an ambulance to Tucson.

It isn't only the environment that people must face to come here.  It is not uncommon to hear stories and signs of groups being robbed on their way north, of women being raped, of complete lawlessness, despite increasing numbers of Border Patrol agents, mobile surveillance units, sheriffs operating under the authority of the federally funded Operation Stone Garden--giving them immigration enforcement powers (even before SB1070 was on the Senate floor)--and soon, another shot by the National Guard.

Conditions don't relent: temperatures will be above one-hundred degrees for much of this week.  The number of recovered human remains in the Tucson sector is up 18% from this time last year--from 92 bodies in 2009 to 108 so far this year, and this is only the beginning of the summer crossing season.