The episode came to light around 9:45 p.m. Central time on Wednesday when Border Patrol agents near Del Rio, Texas, apprehended a man who told them he had been crossing the Rio Grande with his family in an attempt to enter the United States when their raft overturned in the water, spilling its nine passengers into the river. The man said that he saw his 10-month-old child and 7-year-old nephew, as well as another man and that man’s daughter, swept away by the water.
The agents then heard screaming from the river and saw two people struggling in the water close to a raft. The man they had apprehended identified them as his wife and 6-year-old daughter. Agents entered the water and pulled the mother and child ashore, and began searching for the others who had been aboard the raft.
Two other passengers, another man and his 13-year-old son, were later found on the U.S. side of the river. Border Patrol agents found the body of the 10-month-old baby on Thursday, according to a Customs and Border Protection official. Agents were still searching for the three migrants who had not been recovered.
The chaotic episode highlights the rising death toll as migrants from Central America try to cross the border with Mexico. Two detained migrant children from Guatemala died in December while in Border Patrol custody, and a 16-year-old boy from Guatemala died earlier this week in Texas after arriving at a shelter for unaccompanied children.
Most migrant deaths on America’s southwest border occur on land. From October 1997 to September 2018, the Border Patrol recorded 7,505 migrant deaths in its nine sectors, and the vast majority were migrants who died from dehydration and exposure to the elements while hiking through the desert or the brush.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.