At least thirty-nine migrants, including twenty-eight Guatemalans, died and twenty-nine others were injured in the fire at a detention center in Ciudad Juarez, a Mexican city bordering the United States, on Tuesday, March 28.
This tragedy was caused by migrants who feared deportation, according to the Mexican government. “They put mattresses on the door of the reception center and set them on fire without imagining that this would cause this terrible accident,” lamented Mexican President Andrés Manuel Lopez Obrador during his daily press conference. “This is a protest movement that they started. We assume that they have found out that they will be deported and resettled,” he also said.
The head of state also confirmed the death toll of thirty-nine announced by the National Institute for Migration (INM), which manages the center. The 29 injured were taken to four hospitals in serious condition, the INM said.
The Mexican authorities have announced that they have “established contacts with the consular authorities of the various countries in order to implement the measures authorized by the full identification of the migrants who have died”.
“The identified migrants” are twenty-eight Guatemalans, thirteen Hondurans, twelve Venezuelans, twelve Salvadorans, one Colombian and one Ecuadorian, the Attorney General of Mexico reported, without distinguishing between the dead and the injured.
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The fire, which was unprecedented at migrant facilities in the country, started just before midnight on Monday, prompting the mobilization of firefighters and dozens of ambulances. It started in the area where undocumented aliens are held.
Many migrants had been brought to this center in recent days following a campaign by local authorities against street vendors, many of whom are foreigners. “What happened on the streets has nothing to do with what happened here,” Ciudad Juárez Mayor Cruz Pérez Cuellar told reporters. He denied that authorities had carried out crackdowns on migrants before the tragedy.
A rescuer, who asked for anonymity because he was not allowed to speak, said around 70 migrants, mostly Venezuelans, were at the scene.
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Ciudad Juarez, adjacent to El Paso (Texas), is one of the border cities from where many undocumented migrants try to reach the United States to seek asylum after crossing many countries. Around 7,661 migrants have died or disappeared en route to the United States since 2014, according to the International Organization for Migration (IOM).
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The President of the United States, Joe Biden, in February introduced new restrictive measures on the right to asylum of migrants who have crossed the border with Mexico, forcing them to apply in transit countries or via the internet. The measures also provide for more frequent recourse by the United States to immediate expulsions, accompanied by a five-year ban on entering the territory.
About 200,000 people attempt to cross the border between Mexico and the United States each month. Migrants fleeing poverty or violence in their countries of origin often take enormous risks to set foot on American soil.