The number of migrants killed after the fire in an immigration detention center in Ciudad Juárez (Chihuahua state, Mexico) last week rose to 40 this Monday, after the authorities reported the death of one person who remained among the dozens of wounded.
The authorities did not identify this last deceased person, nor did they detail their nationality.
Of the 28 injuries that had been reported last week, an unidentified person died on Monday and another 23 continue to be hospitalized, according to a press release from the Ministry of Security and Citizen Protection.
[Mexico closes the Ciudad Juárez station where 39 migrants died in a fire and blames the security company for “cruel acts”]
The Attorney General's Office reported that its staff have met with victims and their families to advance the investigations into the fire that has been described by the authorities themselves as "an obvious homicide."
A woman participates with a group of migrants and relatives of people killed by a fire in Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua, on April 3, 2023.EFE
Authorities last week arrested at least five people in connection with the fire, including state officials, security guards from the private company that was supposed to safeguard migrants at that center, and a migrant they credit with starting the fire. .
The Executive Commission for Attention to Victims said that it has provided assistance to the families of migrants with the procedures so that they can be reunited.
Last Monday night, after a day of migrant detentions in Ciudad Juárez, about 70 people remained detained at the immigration station, where dozens died after a fire broke out inside the government facility.
Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said the fire was started by the migrants themselves by burning mattresses in protest after learning they were going to be deported.
They reveal conditions in which migrants lived in the burned down center of Ciudad Juárez
March 31, 202304:54
The preliminary count of deaths began at 37, but it varied during the course of the week, while relatives and friends of the migrants detained in the center demanded answers from the Government.
[The precariousness of the centers for migrants in Mexico is evident with the fire in Ciudad Juárez]
Among the dead are six Hondurans, seven Salvadorans, 18 Guatemalans, one Colombian and seven Venezuelans.
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.
With information from
EFE
.
