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MEXICO CITY
The bodies of two dozen people washed ashore Friday in southern Mexico after emergency officials received reports that a boat carrying Central American migrants capsized in the Pacific Ocean.
The corpses have not yet been identified, and officials said the government was searching the waters for more bodies around the coastal town of San Francisco del Mar, 200 miles up the coast from the Guatemalan border.
Sergio Segreste, the Oaxaca state public safety secretary, said 24 bodies, all of adult men, washed ashore.
"This morning, we got a report that a vessel carrying undocumented migrants had capsized or gone down," Segreste said. "The assumption is that the cause of the accident was the rough weather."
If confirmed to be migrants, it could be evidence that smugglers are increasingly turning to boats to transport Central Americans through Mexico, avoiding highway checkpoints.
Many illegal migrants have been stranded and looking for other ways north since service was interrupted this year on two railway lines they once used to hitch rides north on freight trains.
In August, thousands of U.S.-bound Central American migrants found themselves stranded near the Guatemala border after Connecticut-based Genesee & Wyoming Inc. withdrew from a 30-year concession to operate the Chiapas-Mayab line. For decades, migrants had relied on the train to carry them from to the U.S./Mexico border.
It remains unclear whether the closures will cause more migrants to hire smugglers, who often transport them in trucks, or to attempt risky trips in rickety and overcrowded boats.
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