Mexico City, April 14, (dpa/GNA) – Mexican authorities on Thursday said they found 209 migrants, including 25 unaccompanied minors, in an abandoned lorry in the south-eastern state of Veracruz on the Gulf of Mexico.
The country’s migration authority said that the dry van was found on Wednesday night abandoned near the community of Nuevo Teapa on the road connecting the cities of Villahermosa and Coatzacoalcos.
The National Guard and Immigration Department (INM) said that the agents opened the lorry’s door after hearing screams coming from inside it, finding adults and children packed inside.
The INM said that one of the rescued people showed signs of suffocation and was taken to hospital, where they were recovering.
Most of the migrants are from Guatemala, authorities said in a statement. In the trailer were also individuals from countries including Honduras, El Salvador and Ecuador.
Two weeks ago, 40 migrants died and almost 30 others were injured in a fire in a shelter for migrants in northern Mexico, on the border with the United States. The men were trapped and could not get to safety.
The Attorney General’s Office is investigating the case on suspicion of murder. Five officers and a migrant are being held in custody, and further arrest warrants are to follow.
The migrant is said to have set mattresses on fire in protest after being informed they were about to be moved to a different location. The officials, in turn, are suspected of not having provided any help.
Last year, more than 50 people believed to have been migrants were found dead in a parked lorry on the outskirts of the city of San Antonio in the US state of Texas. They had been left locked in the lorry’s trailer in sweltering heat with no air conditioning.
Thousands of migrants fleeing poverty, violence and political crisis seek to reach the US via Mexico. The US border protection agency recorded more than 2 million attempts to cross the border into the US between October 2021 and October 2022.
They increasingly include migrants from Venezuela, Haiti and Cuba, alongside those from Central America.
GNA