MEXICO CITY (AP) — The man and his 23-month-old daughter lie face down in shallow water along the Matamoros, Mexico, bank of the Rio Grande across from Brownsville, Texas.

His black shirt is hiked up his chest with the girl's head tucked inside, and her arm draped around his neck suggesting she clung to him in her final moments.

The searing photograph this week of the two drowned migrants at the border highlights the perils faced by the surge of mostly Central Americans fleeing violence and poverty and hoping for asylum in the U.S.

The two were swept away by the current and their bodies discovered Monday morning hundreds of yards away.