It was created on Monday evening when 68 adult men from Central and South America were inside.
Rescue teams recover bodies from a migrant center in Ciudad Juarez on March 27, 2023. (Photo: web)
At least 39 migrants died and 29 others were injured in the fire at a detention center in Mexico’s Ciudad Juarez (north) on the border with the United States, the Mexican government reported early Tuesday morning.
The incident, unprecedented in this type of facility, occurred on Monday evening when 68 adult men from Central and South America were inside.
“The Interior Ministry’s National Institute for Migration (INM) regrets the death of 39 foreign migrants by fire so far,” it said in a detailed statement.
The 29 injured were taken to four hospitals, where their condition is serious, the agency added.
“Communication and coordination has been established with consular authorities from different countries to implement measures that allow full identification of deceased migrants,” added the INM.
The fire broke out in the area where undocumented foreigners are housed. “The INM firmly rejects the actions that led to this tragedy,” he added.
An AFP journalist confirmed the moment lifeguards removed the bodies to be placed in the immigration center parking lot before being removed by forensic staff.
The accident in this center near the border led to the mobilization of firefighters and dozens of ambulances. The site was guarded by the military and national guards in the early hours of the morning.
Scores of migrants have been transferred to this migration center in recent days after local authorities removed street vendors, many of them foreigners.
-“They don’t tell you anything”-
Viangly, a Venezuelan, cried out in desperation outside the immigration center where her 27-year-old husband was taken after he was arrested despite having the documents to stay in Mexico, she said.
The young woman knew that her husband was among the victims of the fire, but she did not know his state of health: “They took him away in an ambulance. They (immigration officers) don’t tell you a relative might die, and they don’t tell you “he’s dead”.
Ciudad Juárez, a neighboring town of El Paso, Texas, is one of the border cities stranded by scores of migrants trying to enter the United States to seek refuge.
Fed up with waiting, hundreds of them, most of them Venezuelans, tried to storm across an international bridge on March 13, but US agents prevented them.
A recent report by the International Organization for Migration (IOM) shows that about 7,661 migrants have died or disappeared en route to the United States since 2014. 988 died while traveling under inhumane conditions.
The President of the United States, Joe Biden, tightened immigration policies, forcing migrants from Ukraine, Venezuela, Cuba, Nicaragua and Haiti to seek asylum in the countries they are traveling through or to make an appointment online.
These measures come at a time when the Democratic president is being accused by the Republican opposition of losing control of the border, with more than 4.5 million undocumented migrants intercepted in the region since he took office.
