(Tuxtla Gutiérrez) Guatemala will declare three days of mourning after the death of 55 illegal migrants, mostly Guatemalans, in a truck accident in Mexico, Guatemalan Foreign Minister Pedro Brolo announced on Friday.
President Alejandro Giammattei “will announce today three days of national mourning with the flag at half mast”, the minister told the press, speaking in front of a hospital in Tuxtla Gutiérrez, in southern Mexico, where are still being treated of the injured from the accident.
“Right now, all of Guatemala is in mourning,” he added.
Some 160 migrants, mostly undocumented from Central America, were traveling hidden and crammed into a truck trailer on Thursday en route to northern Mexico, presumably towards the US border, when the vehicle overturned on the highway near Tuxtla Gutiérrez, the capital of the state of Chiapas, bordering Guatemala.
The accident left 55 dead and 105 injured, mostly from Guatemala, but also from Honduras, Mexico, Ecuador and the Dominican Republic, according to the authorities.
A traditional passageway, Mexico is faced this year with record arrivals of migrants, coming not only from Honduras and El Salvador, but also from Haiti.