The derailment of 12 wagons of a freight train carrying a group of migrants caused the death of a 4-year-old Venezuelan child, injured three others – including an unaccompanied minor – and caused a leak of sulfuric acid for at least ten hours in the Juarez desert.
“I just heard the screech of the train stopping and then immediately heard the loud bangs, but you can’t see anything here and you couldn’t see what had happened,” said Miriam Máynez, who lives on the El 70 ranch, at kilometer 302 of the Pan-American Ahumada-Juárez highway, in front of what used to be the Médanos railroad station, where the accident occurred Tuesday night. At 10:48 p.m., a woman of Honduran origin asked for help from the authorities through the emergency number 911, reporting that the train carrying a group of migrants had derailed and that there were ten people injured, including a woman who had suffered the amputation of a foot. Authorities from all three levels of government and the Mexican Railways (Ferromex) company approached the area, where the migrants told them that they were sleeping on the roof of a train car heading to the border when several cars derailed, and that a 4-year-old child was missing. “The testimonies were modified, 10, 15, more people, but they say that many people continued walking, got off the train and ran to different places in the area,” reported Mauricio Alfredo Rodríguez Padilla, coordinator of state Civil Protection in the Northern Zone of Chihuahua. Jorge Puentes Hernández, commander of the Fire Department, said that upon arriving at the scene they noticed that there was a chemical spill of sulfuric acid, so they activated the protocol for retaining the material with specialized equipment and initially managed to contain the spill by placing a wooden stake. “Ferromex personnel arrived, the scene was handed over to them so they could also assess their equipment. Once the spill was contained, we began searching for some people, since the injured people themselves said that there were around 15 people, and the search protocol for a minor was activated,” he said. He reported that when they couldn’t locate the child, they brought in all-terrain equipment from Ciudad Juárez to facilitate the search in the middle of the desert, but at approximately 9:30 in the morning yesterday his body was found under one of the derailed tanker trucks. “The train derailed and I lost my four-year-old son. I managed to save the child and my wife is seriously injured, she lost a foot,” said Josué, a Colombian migrant who was traveling with his family on a train car, during the early hours of yesterday. He said he was traveling with his sons Aaron and Kleiber, ages 4 and 7, and his wife Ruth Sarahí GT, 28, on a freight train because “immigration has become a business lately, they don’t let us through anymore, we go straight to the border, with an appointment (CBP One), without an appointment, they always catch us, send us back, mistreat us, hit us. For them it’s a joke, they make fun of us,” he said. The darkness of the desert and the risk of a sulfuric acid spill prevented the child from being found during the early morning. Authorities did not find his body until morning. “They found a little foot, we removed a little soil and unfortunately we found him under the wagons,” reported the Fire Commander after finding the child, who was transferred by experts to the Forensic Medical Service (Semefo) of this border, while the father and his little brother remained in the place, inside an official unit of the National Institute of Migration (INM), guarded by personnel from the Administrative Office for the Care of Children and Adolescents. Due to the number of injuries that were initially reported, nine ambulances from the Municipal Rescue, the Red Cross and the State Government Rescue Unit (URGE) arrived at Medanos Station on Friday night, whose personnel attended to Kleiber, 7 years old, “with very minor injuries, so he remained in the custody of his father and in the custody of Migration,” reported yesterday the Rescue Commander, Juan González. He said that two more people were transferred to Ciudad Juárez for medical attention with injuries to their spine and face, because they were thrown from the train cars. The Venezuelan mother, Ruth Sarahí GT, was transferred to the General Hospital, where she was treated for the traumatic amputation of her right foot that she suffered during the accident, as well as a spinal cord injury. “She is stable, under neurosurgery management, she has a spinal injury that could leave her with a problem when walking,” the state Health Department reported yesterday. Personnel from the Mexican Social Security Institute (IMSS) also announced that the second injured person was a 17-year-old teenager identified as Yefferson PR, of Nicaraguan origin, who was traveling without his family. The “unaccompanied minor,” as the immigration authorities of Mexico and the United States call migrant children and adolescents who travel without the company of their mother, father or guardian, entered the operating room yesterday due to a fracture of the lower jaw. According to authorities working yesterday in the area of the accident, the teenager suffered the amputation of part of his tongue. “The INM initiated contact with the consular authorities of the two countries to arrange assistance for the victims and to arrange for the transfer of their relatives to Mexico,” the Mexican government reported in a press release.
Trains, a risk for migrants
“We know that many people travel on foot or often get on the train, unfortunately we don’t know when an accident will happen. The suggestion is to try not to do it, because in the end, people, due to mobility, will do it,” said the Rescue Commander. Rodríguez Padilla urged migrants to avoid putting their lives at risk and also recalled that this year bodies of migrants have been rescued from the border desert.
Dangerous spill
The state official reported that although the spill of sulfuric acid, a flammable substance, was contained by firefighters during Tuesday night, yesterday morning it continued in drops and then increased, so that until yesterday afternoon the operation teams had not managed to enter the so-called “hot zone.” He explained that due to the action protocol first “a safe scene is created; all personnel are removed from the scene, all personnel are installed in a safe area, as well as the media, active personnel and emergency bodies. The Mexican Railways Emergency Response Brigade will evaluate the scene to see if there is any flammable substance or any toxic liquid, and then maneuvers will be made to remove the wagons and tankers that are on the track to reduce the risk.” He said that a company hired by Ferromex will be in charge of carrying out the expert appraisal on the causes of the accident, while the Federal Attorney for Environmental Protection (Profepa) will evaluate the environmental damage due to the spill of sulfuric acid. Although according to data provided in the accident area the tanker has a capacity of 53 thousand liters, as of yesterday afternoon the amount spilled had not been counted. According to Rodriguez Padilla, the expert appraisals will take time due to the work of removing the wagons. He stressed that the possibility of finding more victims would be ruled out until all the wagons were removed. Agents from the Secretariat of National Defense (Sedena) and the National Guard also worked at the site, who kept the area guarded yesterday. Until yesterday, the Ferromex company did not give official information about the accident due to the completion of the expert report, while a former employee of the company explained that one cause could be the movement of the tracks caused by the rains in a geographical area such as the Samalayuca desert, coupled with the lack of maintenance. Due to the containment operations of the federal government, since 2022 thousands of migrants have extended the route of “La Bestia” to the Mexican borders with the United States, and since then thousands of people of various nationalities have used the freight train cars to travel from the State of Mexico to Ciudad Juárez. According to statistics from the El Paso Sector of the Border Patrol, during the first ten months of fiscal year 2024 (from October 2023 to July 2024), its agents recorded 230,336 people entering the United States illegally, 36 percent less than the 364,089 detained in the same period of fiscal year 2023. (Hérika Martínez Prado / El Diario, with information from Luz del Carmen Sosa)
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