The Mexican government raised to 40 on Tuesday the number of migrants killed by a fire at a station of the National Institute of Migration (INM) in Ciudad Juárez, on the border with the United States.
Although the president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, had reported the death of 39 migrants in his morning press conference, the spokesman for the Presidency of Mexico, Jesús Ramírez Cuevas, specified that the death toll is 40.
“President López Obrador regretted the death of 40 migrants due to the fire at a shelter in Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua,” Ramírez Cuevas stated on his social networks.
The president detailed earlier that the incident occurred at 7:00 p.m. in Ciudad Juárez, on the border with the US city of El Paso, Texas, where there was first an initial balance of 37 deaths, most of them from Central America and Venezuela.
López Obrador blamed a migrant protest for the fire.
The president “informed that the incident occurred because of a protest and that the director of the INM (Francisco Garduño) and the FGR (Attorney General of the Republic) are already investigating to determine the responsibilities,” according to Ramírez Cuevas.
Before the incident, INM agents had carried out an operation to remove migrants begging from the streets.
The presence of migrants in the area has intensified this year since the United States announced new measures, including the immediate deportation of migrants from Haiti, Venezuela, Nicaragua and Cuba who arrive by land under Title 42.
The Mexican government has also faced criticism from human rights organizations for accepting US policies and deploying more than 20,000 elements of the Armed Forces at the borders for immigration tasks.
According to Mexican civil organizations, 2022 was the most tragic year for migrants in Mexico, as some 900 died trying to cross without documents from the country to the United States.
The region is experiencing a record migratory flow, with 2.76 million undocumented immigrants detained at the United States border with Mexico in fiscal year 2022.
EFE
