The municipal cemetery of Tapachula in the Mexican state of Chiapas is a sprawling expanse overflowing with graves in colourful disrepair. Tombstones from centuries past crack and crumble, and the clutter is so extreme that, to reach certain parts of the graveyard, you must resign yourself to stepping on the dead.
Some of the newer graves still host the remains of the Day of the Dead celebration in November – death being far more, well, lively in Mexico than in most other places on the planet. The country becomes awash in the cempasúchil flower – or Mexican marigold – and mariachis descend upon cemeteries for all-night festivities with music, food, and libations.
Lying close to the Mexican border with Guatemala, Tapachula has achieved notoriety as a “jail-city” for refugees from Central America, Haiti, Africa and beyond who are effectively trapped there by the Mexican government – which is continuously bullied by the United States into curbing northbound “migrant flows.” And inevitably, some of these refugees perish in limbo. READ MORE AT AL JAZEERA ENGLISH.