(Ciudad Juárez) At least 39 migrants died and 29 others were injured in a fire that hit a detention center where they were being held in northern Mexico early on Tuesday, in Ciudad Juárez, a Mexican city bordering the United States, announced the Mexican authorities.
The National Institute for Migration (INM) which manages this center “deplores the death of 39 migrants so far following a fire”, according to a press release.
The 29 injured were hospitalized in serious condition in four hospitals, added the INM, declaring its readiness to help the families of the victims.
PHOTO JOSE LUIS GONZALEZ, REUTERS
The INM specified that it had established contacts “with the consular authorities of the various countries to implement the actions authorized by the complete identification of the deceased migrants”.
The fire, unprecedented in facilities for migrants in the country, began shortly before midnight Monday, prompting the mobilization in the early morning Tuesday of firefighters and dozens of ambulances.
It started in the area where undocumented foreigners are housed. The INM indicates that it “strongly rejects the acts that occurred in this tragedy”.
PHOTO JOSE LUIS GONZALEZ, REUTERS
An AFP journalist was able to see employees of the forensic service placing corpses in the parking lot of the center before they were taken away for identification.
The site was guarded by soldiers and the national guard.
Many migrants had been transferred to this center in recent days after a campaign by local authorities against street vendors, which include many foreigners.
A rescuer who requested anonymity due to a lack of permission to speak said around 70 migrants, mostly Venezuelans, were at the site.
“They don’t tell you anything”
PHOTO JOSE LUIS GONZALEZ, REUTERS
Viangly
Viangly, a Venezuelan, screams in despair outside the center where her 27-year-old husband was taken after his arrest in a roundup when, she says, he has Mexican papers. “They took him in an ambulance,” she says. She doesn’t know anything about her condition and complains that those in charge of the center “don’t tell you anything”.
Ciudad Juárez, neighboring El Paso (Texas), is one of the border towns from which many undocumented migrants seek asylum in the United States.
Since 2014, around 7,661 migrants have died or gone missing en route to the United States, according to figures from the International Organization for Migration (IOM).
On March 13, hundreds of weary migrants, mostly Venezuelans, attempted to cross the border, but US agents barred them from crossing.
On June 27, 56 migrants were found suffocated to death in an abandoned trailer near San Antonio, Texas.
US President Joe Biden took new restrictive measures in February on the right to asylum for migrants who have crossed the border with Mexico, forcing them to apply in transit countries or online.
The measures also provide for more frequent use by the United States of immediate expulsions, accompanied by a ban on new entry into the territory for five years.
Some 200,000 people attempt to cross the border between Mexico and the United States each month. Migrants, anxious to escape poverty or violence in their countries of origin, often take enormous risks to enter American soil.