A group of migrants
places mats against the bars
of their cell at a detention center in northern
Mexico
and sets them on fire.
The guards see him and walk away without trying to free or help the men
.
Before long, smoke fills the entire room and the video from the surveillance camera
cuts out
.
In the early hours of this Tuesday it was learned that a raging fire
caused the death of at least 40 people
in an immigration detention center in
Ciudad Juárez, Mexico
.
Hours later, local media released a video in which it can be seen how the detainees remained locked in the cells
while the flames advanced
.
After the fire broke out Monday night, there were
rows of bodies
covered in foil blankets outside immigration facilities that sit on the south bank of the Rio Grande, across from El Paso, Texas, at
one of the busiest crossings. frequented
by
people trying to cross the border into the United States
and asylum seekers.
Another
29 migrants were injured
and were transferred "in
delicate or serious
condition to four local hospitals for immediate care," the National Institute of Migration (INM) said in a statement.
The moment when one of the security guards escapes without helping detainees at an immigration detention center in Mexico.
The fire started in a dormitory area
where 68 men were staying
, according to the INM.
The immigration agency
condemned the events
that caused the fire
but did not explain how
the emergency was dealt with or whether or not an attempt was made to evacuate the foreigners.
In the video,
two people in uniform run
into the camera frame and at least one migrant appears behind bars by the metal gate.
None of the agents go near the cells
to open them, instead
they flee while everything is filled with smoke
.
The Secretary of the Interior, Adán Augusto López, in an interview with the Mexican journalist Joaquín López Dóriga confirmed
the authenticity of the recording
and said that they had known him since Tuesday morning.
The foreign minister of Guatemala, Mario Búcaro, confirmed that
28 of the deceased were Guatemalans
and said that he has the support of the Mexican authorities "to find out the truth" and "find those responsible."
Meanwhile, the
governments of Colombia and Ecuador
also confirmed the death of a person from each of those countries.
The Mexican prosecutor's office added that there were also
13 Hondurans and 12 Salvadorans in the damaged facilities, whose status he did not specify
.
One wounded man refused to be identified.
In the afternoon, the migration agency indicated that it had provided assistance to
15
adult migrant women who were evicted from the facilities.
Mexican President
Andrés Manuel López Obrador
said that it was an
unfortunate incident
and that the migrants, who apparently wanted to avoid their transfer or deportation, "did not imagine that this was going to cause this
terrible misfortune
."
The federal prosecutor's office already has
an investigation open
, the National Human Rights Commission, an official entity, is assisting the migrants, and the INM announced that those
affected will be given a humanitarian visa
, which guarantees them hospital care, and that it will cover the
funeral expenses
of the deceased.
In parallel,
work began to identify the deceased
with the consular authorities of various countries.
As the morgue in this violent city
was already at
capacity before the fire, the government had to
rent refrigerated trailers
to protect the bodies of the migrants, Chihuahua state prosecutor César Jáuregui told reporters.
Migrants in Ciudad Juárez: the voices of the victims
In a nearby hospital,
Viangly Infante Padrón, a 31-year-old Venezuelan
traveling with her three children, was waiting for her husband, who was treated for smoke inhalation.
The night before she was outside the detention center waiting for
her husband to be released
when the fire started.
“
There was smoke everywhere.
They let the women out and the immigration employees,” she explained.
“The men were never removed until the fire department arrived.”
She said
she saw several dead
before finding her husband in an ambulance.
She "She was desperate because
she saw a corpse, a body, a corpse
, and she didn't see it anywhere."
Shortly before, a hundred Venezuelan migrants gathered in the place demanding information from relatives and
asking for justice for what happened
.
"They don't want to attend to us... We want to know
if he is alive or dead
," lamented Katiuska Márquez, a 23-year-old Venezuelan with
two small children,
unable to understand how the guards at the center were alive and the migrants were not.
“
How could they not get them out?
”
Márquez
was seeking news of a half-brother
, 26-year-old Orlando Mandonado, with whom he was traveling.
The family rented
a room where ten people lived
who paid with the money they got from begging on the street.
They were all arrested on Monday shortly after noon with about twenty people, including children.
“I was
at the traffic light with a cardboard
asking for what I needed for my children and people supported me with food,” explained the woman who has been in Ciudad Juárez for ten days waiting for an appointment to request asylum in the United States.
Suddenly, agents arrived.
"
Immigration grabbed me by the jacket
until they put me in a van with my brother and several other families."
According to what he said, everyone entered the facilities but the women and children were kept outside the cells and a few hours later they were released.
Increased number of migrants trying to reach the United States
Tensions between authorities and migrants escalated this month in Ciudad Juárez, where shelters are
full of people hoping to seek asylum in the United States
.
A little over two weeks ago, a group of mostly Venezuelans encouraged by false rumors that they could pass freely
tried to cross the border bridge
and was blocked by the US authorities.
After that, the mayor of Juárez, Cruz Pérez Cuellar, started a
campaign to inform
migrants that there was room in the shelters and that it
was not necessary for them to beg in the streets
.
In addition, he urged residents
not to give them money
and said authorities would remove them from intersections where begging was dangerous and reportedly a nuisance to residents.
Unlike Central Americans, who are detained for deportation, it is not usual for Mexico to repatriate Venezuelans, although it does move them to the central and southern states of the country.
The Red de Casas de Migrantes y Centros de Derechos Humanos in the north of Mexico, which had already denounced
the increase in joint operations
by immigration and municipal authorities and
arbitrary detentions
in the first days of March in a letter signed by more than 30 organizations humanitarian organizations, stated this Tuesday in a statement that the event "reflects
the absence of protocols for the protection of migrants
and asylum seekers."
They blamed the authorities for what happened due to the lack of action and indicated that it is a
"reduced and unventilated" space
where
there was no drinking water
or medical attention and people were incommunicado and uninformed.
"
It was seen coming
," they sentenced in the statement.
"Mexico's immigration policy kills".
The
United Nations
called for an exhaustive investigation of the events and Felipe González Morales, special rapporteur for the human rights of migrants, recalled that international law establishes that "migrant detention must be an exceptional measure and not a general one."
The facilities that the Mexican immigration authorities have throughout the country have repeatedly suffered both criticism for overcrowding and
protests and riots
.
The last ones took place at the end of 2022
in Tijuana
(in the north)
and Tapachula
(on the southern border).
Mexico
has become
the world's third most popular destination for asylum seekers
, after the United States and Germany.
But it is still very much a
country of passage
to its neighbor to the north.
Tens of thousands are stranded in the south of the country or in the border cities of the north waiting for their processes to advance or for an opportunity to cross.
In a mass celebrated in memory of the migrants, Bishop José Guadalupe Torres Campos expressed his
weariness in the face of so much death
, the one generated by the daily violence and now it is against the migrants.
"The cry,
the cry of all is enough
," he said. "Enough of so much pain, enough of so much death."
With information from AP.
DS
look too
Horror in Mexico: 40 people die in a fire in a migration center and López Obrador blames the migrants
Many immigrants leave after decades of illegal stay in the US.
