Thirty-nine migrants were killed in a fire at an immigration detention center in the northern Mexican city of Ciudad Juarez, on the border with the United States, the Mexican government said Tuesday. The National Institute for Migration said: We regret the death of 39 immigrants so far in the fire.
An employee of the government of the state of Chihuahua reported that more than 30 people were killed. El Sol de Parral newspaper reported that most of the victims died of suffocation.
Eyewitnesses reported that employees of the forensic medicine agency removed about 10 bodies from the garage of the facility of the National Institute of Migration, where several other bodies were placed and covered with blankets.
A rescue worker reported that about 70 migrants, most of them Venezuelans, were in the center.
"They took him in an ambulance," said Venagli, who was screaming in front of the center where her 27-year-old husband was taken after his arrest. But she doesn't know anything about his condition.
The fire broke out just before midnight on Monday, and firefighters and dozens of ambulances rushed to the scene immediately.
Ciudad Juarez, near El Paso, Texas, is one of the border towns through which many undocumented immigrants seek asylum in the United States.
Since 2014, 7,661 migrants have died or gone missing en route to the United States, according to figures from the International Organization for Migration.
On March 13, hundreds of migrants, most of them Venezuelans, tired of waiting, tried to cross the border, but the Americans prevented them from passing.
On June 27, 56 immigrants suffocated in an abandoned trailer near San Antonio, Texas.
Last February, US President Joe Biden adopted new measures that restrict the right to seek asylum for migrants crossing the border from Mexico and force them to apply in the country of transit or online. The measures stipulated that the United States resort to immediate expulsions of immigrants in violation of the measures, accompanied by a ban on re-entering its territory for a period of 5 years.
About 200,000 people try to cross the border between Mexico and the United States every month. Immigrants seeking to escape poverty or violence in their home countries take great risks to enter the United States.
Okaz (Jeddah) @OKAZ_ONLINE