A pregnant migrant dies after being abandoned in a trailer with 250 other people in Mexico

A group of migrants were abandoned in a trailer in Monclova, Coahuila. National Institute of Migration

The crudest scenes of migration in Mexico do not usually happen on sight.

They happen daily, but underground: hidden inside long trailers that transport people in subhuman conditions;

In the darkness of the night;

the immensity of the desert or the luxuriance of the forests and mountains.

Every once in a while, a story comes to light to remind us of the reality of the daily horror faced by thousands of people on their journey through Mexican territory.

This Sunday, a pregnant Nicaraguan woman died locked inside the box of a truck that had been abandoned in Monclova, a city in Coahuila less than 300 kilometers from the border with the United States, according to a statement from the National Institute of Migration (INM).

The woman was traveling along with 250 other people —according to estimates by the Undersecretary of Security, Ricardo Mejía Berdeja—, in the box of a refrigerated truck with a damaged refrigeration system.

Overcrowded without water or ventilation and a thermal sensation of 40 degrees Celsius, according to the INM.

The coyotes left the trailer for unknown reasons and left the migrants, mostly Nicaraguans, Hondurans and Guatemalans, among whom were seven children, to their fate.

The woman has died in the hospital "with a pregnancy that was diagnosed as stillborn," according to the medical report cited by the INM.

The cause of death was multiple organ dysfunction syndrome, a condition often caused by a poorly healed infection.

Another 14 people are hospitalized, most for severe dehydration.

@INAMI_mx will deliver humanitarian visas to migrants abandoned in a trailer in Monclova, Coahuila.

Regrets the death of a woman who was pregnant and who previously presented a stillbirth;

Also, it will support the investigations that are carried out ➡️ https://t.co/59VtW7SgcY pic.twitter.com/XN5D0SGWp9

– INM (@INAMI_mx) March 6, 2022

Most of the people, some 160 according to Mejía Berdeja, escaped as best they could before being arrested by immigration agents.

The INM has detained 64 migrants, whose current whereabouts have not been disclosed.

The institution has assured that it will deliver visiting cards "for humanitarian reasons to all the rescued people."

In the statement, it is also stated that "it will support and provide humanitarian aid to those who left the box of the trailer and dispersed in the territory", although it has not specified how it intends to carry out this measure.

In addition, it has indicated that it will cover the funeral expenses and the repatriation of the body of the deceased woman.

Agents from the Secretary of National Defense (Sedena), the National Guard, the Attorney General's Office and members of the Government of Coahuila, the state civil police, the Monclova municipal police and the Mexican Red Cross participated in the operation, according to the notice.

The driver of the vehicle has been arrested and is at the disposal of the Prosecutor's Office.

Of the people served, the majority (47) come from Nicaragua, a country whose contribution to migratory flows is increasing, as a result of the consolidation of the regime of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo, the couple that has entrenched themselves in power with dictatorial measures that have caused massive exile and rising poverty.

The rest of the people come from Honduras, Guatemala and Cuba.

The Mexican president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, asked about the tragedy in his daily morning press conference this Monday, has limited himself to pointing out that it is "a very delicate situation."

The president has hesitated in his response and has finally passed the baton to Mejía Berdeja: “It seems that there is a deceased lady or a baby.

About 50 or 60 [people] were rescued, but the neighbors say that they just dispersed.”

"It is presumed that they were going... do you bring the report?", he asked the Undersecretary of Security, who a moment later took the microphone while the leader stepped aside.

The latest tragedy aboard a trailer overcrowded to exhaustion comes just three months after 55 migrants died and 105 were injured when a truck in Chiapas that was transporting them in their box overturned.

In October another 652 people were located in Tamaulipas in three different vehicles without ventilation.

195 Central Americans appeared crowded without water or food in a hotel in Nuevo León.

Also at the end of October, the National Guard fired on a van in which 13 people from Cuba, Haiti, Brazil and Ghana were traveling, killing two Cubans.

The strong persecution of migratory caravans, an alternative that was born with the intention of seeking safer trips for migrants trying to reach the United States, has caused many people to once again risk coyotes and human traffickers to cross Mexico.

Along the way, in addition to violence, rape and kidnapping attempts by criminal groups, they face police persecution and the constant threat of being deported or locked up.

Between January and September 2021 alone, more than 190,000 undocumented people were detected in the country and some 74,300 have been deported, triple the number in 2020, according to official figures cited by the

agency .

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