Border agents rescue 6 from desert

BY JAMES GILBERT, SUN STAFF WRITER

March 14, 2007 - 11:44PM

U.S. Border Patrol agents from the Yuma sector's Wellton station rescued six illegal immigrants who had run out of water and become lost in the desert Wednesday morning.

"In this case, they were lucky that it wasn't a smuggler who left them out there to die," said Yuma sector spokesman Ben Vik. "It was someone who actually cared enough about their welfare to flag down a DPS officer."

According a Border Patrol news release, at about 12:20 a.m., a Department of Public Safety officer found three people near milepost 77 who were believed to be illegal immigrants.

The group told the officer that there were still several people, including two women, in the desert who had been left behind and needed to be rescued.