GUATEMALA CITY,  (Reuters) – Hermelindo Maquin set  out from his home in the Guatemalan countryside in early  August, leaving behind his small farm and pregnant wife as he  began the long, perilous journey to the United States.

Weeks later, the 24-year-old’s blindfolded and bloodstained  body was found in a shed on a remote ranch, one of 72 Central  and South Americans executed in the latest attack by drug gangs  preying on migrants traveling north through Mexico.

The massacre was another sinister turn in Mexico’s drug  war, which has killed 28,000 since President Felipe Calderon  began battling the cartels in late 2006 and is now intensifying  as rival gangs wage turf wars and muscle into new rackets.

Relatives of Maquin and other migrants from as far away as  Brazil were shocked to learn of the shooting, allegedly by the  brutal Zetas cartel, near the end of a long trip when the  travelers were only around 90 miles 150 km) from the U.S.  border.

“We were praying for them. We were worried about floods,  and by the fact they had no money and no food. But we never  thought this would happen,” one of Maquin’s relatives in  Guatemala said, asking to go unnamed for fear of reprisals.

The killing also prompted outcry from Latin American  leaders who complain Mexico has failed to protect migrants  even as it denounces Mexicans’ treatment in the United States.

“We feel that Mexico needs to react and act responsibly to  ensure that Mexican authorities are in control, rather than  criminal organizations and human traffickers,” Honduran Foreign  Minister Mario Canahuati said following the massacre.

Countless Latin American migrants journey some 1,900 miles  (3,000 km) through Mexico to find better-paying U.S. jobs,  traveling by car, truck, or foot, some clinging to the top of  cargo trains or hiding in secret compartments built into  tractor trailers.

Some migrants pay as much as $10,000 to smugglers who  promise to get them into the United States. Many others see  their journeys end in robbery, assault or arrest.

The dangers have been compounded in recent years by cartels  expanding into the human trafficking trade, exploiting  vulnerable and anonymous migrants who can carry drugs across  the U.S. border or whose families they can extort for ransom.

Corrupt Mexican police are often accused of playing a role,  turning illegal migrants over to drug gangs for a price.

Dream is finished

Despite high U.S. unemployment, many people still make the  long, costly and dangerous trip to the United States, home to  an estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants.

Cash sent home from migrants working in the United States  is crucial to poor families in countries like Honduras, where  remittances are equal to over a fifth of GDP.

One Honduran migrant, who identified himself only as Alex,  has taken refuge at a church shelter near Mexico City while his  sister, who was traveling north with him, recovers after  severing her leg falling off a cargo train.

The dangers facing migrants in Mexico have prompted Alex to  abandon plans to find work in the United States. “I say to my  countrymen from Honduras, Nicaragua, El Salvador and Guatemala  that this dream of ours is finished,” he said.

Yet Valdete Wilemam, a nun who works with deported migrants  in Honduras, says economic necessity prompts many of the  region’s poor to take such risks again and again.

“Central Americans aren’t going to stop going to the United  States even though they know they’re in danger,” she said.

Mexican Interior Minister Francisco Blake vowed this week  the government would redouble efforts to keep migrants safe.

That pledge comes too late for Jorge Sevilla, a 27-year-old  who was one of 21 Hondurans killed in the Tamaulipas massacre.

“Look at my brother. He was looking to give his two sons a  better life and look at what he found,” Sevilla’s brother  Wilson said.

Hermelindo Maquin and the two in-laws he was traveling with  called home about a week into the journey from Guatemala to say  they had made it to Mexico’s eastern state of Veracruz.

The migrants told their relatives they had met up with a  coyote that would take them into the United States for $2,500  each. It was the last time their family heard from them.