Migrants die in locked rail carriage

Up to 11 illegal immigrants have been found dead in a freight-train carriage in the American state of Iowa.

Up to 11 illegal immigrants have been found dead in a freight-train carriage in the American state of Iowa.

The carriage was latched on the outside and there was no evidence of food or water. The victims had apparently boarded the train in Mexico four months ago, but when they died it was not known.

Police said it was proving difficult to count the bodies, which were decomposed and piled on top of each other. Their nationality, gender and age were unknown.

Mexican officials said the carriage had left Matamoros, Mexico, in June. It had been parked in Oklahoma and was then brought to the town of Denison, about 60 miles north-east of Omaha, Nebraska.

Matamoros, near McAllen, Texas, was once one of the main centres for illegal immigrants trying to enter the United States. Increased border enforcement in the 1990s shifted many immigrants from Matamoros and further west.

The bodies were found on Monday afternoon by workers opening the tops of carriages so they could be cleaned before loading at a grain warehouse west of Denison. The carriage has been sealed and moved to Des Moines for examination.

An immigration department spokesman said smugglers sometimes locked migrants in so the authorities did not check the carriages. "They're literally trapped inside and sometimes authorities will be able to save them. In this case it seems they were not and that their deaths were horrific," he said.

In 1987, 18 Mexican immigrants were found dead and one barely alive in a railway carriage in a siding in Sierra Blanca, Texas. Temperatures inside the carriage had reached 54C (130F)