Mexico City, March 31 (RHC) – Mexico’s National Migration Institute says 370 child migrants have been found abandoned by traffickers crossing the country into the United States in one week.

The children - one as young as 9 years of age - were rescued across 14 states in Mexico between March 17 and 24, the institute said in a statement issued on Saturday.

Mexican authorities said 163 of the children under 18-years-old were travelling alone.

Most of the children showed signs of extreme fatigue, dehydration and foot injuries, along with disorientation at being abandoned at unknown, often dangerous, locations, the institute stated.

They often face the threat of accidents, robbery, rape or being forcibly recruited by criminal gangs.

Traffickers are paid between $3,000 and $5,000 to take the children, most of them from Central America, to the United States via Mexico.

In February, Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto said he had discussed the issue of Mexican immigrants with US President Barack Obama.

Washington is causing a humanitarian crisis with its anti-immigrant policies, the Mexican president said.

Over 47,000 migrants have died while traveling through Mexico in the past six years with an estimated 8,800 unidentified bodies, according to a report published by the Mexican newspaper La Jornada late last year.

Mexicans make up 52 % of all undocumented immigrants in the United States, according to the Pew Hispanic Center, a nonpartisan research organization that seeks to improve understanding of the US Hispanic population.