A Mexican judge determined this Tuesday to link to the process five detainees for the fire that caused the death of 40 migrants on March 27 in a detention center in Ciudad Juárez, in the state of Chihuahua.
The three officials and the security guard at the National Migration Institute (INM) center face charges of intentional homicide and injury, for failing to help (by allegedly not helping the detainees when the fire broke out).
The Venezuelan migrant detained as the alleged perpetrator of the fire (by burning mattresses in protest so as not to be deported, according to the president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador) faces the same accusation.
In addition, the judge ordered the Prosecutor's Office to investigate whether there was torture or mistreatment of the detainees in that immigration facility.
Migrants recreate the Stations of the Cross in Ciudad Juárez after the fire where 39 of them died
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The Attorney General of the Republic (FGR) explained in a statement that "in a hearing held this day [April 4], before the Federal Control judge in Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua, the five people who had been accused and from whom the corresponding arrest warrants had been obtained".
The Mexican press identified the INM officials as Daniel Goray, Rodolfo Collazo and Gloria Ramos;
the guard as Alan Pascual Ventura;
and the migrant like Jaison Daniel Catari.
[Fire in Ciudad Juárez migrant center: survivors denounce harsh overcrowded conditions]
Mexican authorities issued arrest warrants for six people last week, but only five have been detained so far.
The fire started in a cell with 66 men from Central and South America, after some mattresses were set on fire.
As López Obrador explained, it was a protest after "they found out they were going to be deported."
Woman who cried in an ambulance after the fire in Juárez tells what happened to her family
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Images captured by a security camera showed an alleged negligence on the part of the guards, who ignored the migrants' calls for help and ended up leaving, leaving them behind bars.
Hours after the fire began, dozens of bodies covered in thermal blankets were piled up outside the center, located across the border from El Paso, Texas, and one of the main crossing points for immigrants into the United States.
The deceased and injured came from Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Venezuela, Colombia and Ecuador.
The tragedy highlighted the tension that has existed for months in Ciudad Juárez, where shelters are full of people waiting for opportunities to cross into the United States or to request asylum.