Two Guatemalan migrants attempting to enter the United States in Ciudad Juárez, northern Mexico, were killed in shootings suspected to have been carried out by Mexican soldiers, local authorities announced.
The incident occurred late Monday as the undocumented migrants were traveling in a van near the border, prosecutors in the Mexican state of Chihuahua said Tuesday.
The two men killed were 27 and 45 years old and four other Guatemalan migrants were injured, deputy prosecutor Carlos Manuel Salas said at a news conference.
According to the survivors’ account, they were traveling in a van with several other migrants, “when they were attacked, they did not stop, shots were fired,” presumably from the military, he explained.
The weapons of four soldiers were handed over by the Ministry of Defense to investigators who continue to search for information suggesting possible involvement in the events.
The transporter, driven by a smuggler, escaped with four women on board who were uninjured.
A report released on September 12 by the International Organization for Migration (IOM) found that the US-Mexico border was the “most dangerous land migration route in the world” in 2022, with 686 deaths or missing people.
The Mexican government has admitted it is overwhelmed by the number of migrants seeking to cross to the United States.
The US Border Patrol officially recorded 1.8 million migrant crossings at its southern border between October 2022 and August 2023. In August, a record 233,000 people crossed the southern border of the United States.