Migrants cover their faces at the ‘Hijo Prodigo’ shelter in Mexicali, Mexico
CIUDAD JUÁREZ, Mexico (Reuters) – At least 40 migrants from South and Central America died in a fire on Monday night apparently caused by a protest against deportations at a detention center for migrants in the Mexican city of Ciudad Juárez, Mexico. northern border, officials said on Tuesday.
According to Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, authorities believe the fire in the city opposite El Paso, Texas, started at 9:30 pm (local time) when some migrants set fire to mattresses in protest when they found out they were going to be deported. The president did not provide details on how so many people died in the incident.
“They didn’t think it would cause this terrible tragedy,” López Obrador told a news conference, noting that most of the immigrants at the facility were from Central America and Venezuela.
Of the victims, 28 were Guatemalans, according to Guatemala’s national migration institute, and 13 were Hondurans, according to the country’s deputy foreign minister. It was not immediately clear why those totals differed from the death toll reported by Mexican authorities.
A Reuters witness at the scene saw, overnight, bodies lying on the ground in body bags behind a yellow security cordon, surrounded by emergency vehicles. The fire had already been put out.
In addition to the 40 dead, another 28 migrants were injured in the fire and were hospitalized, according to the National Institute of Migration of Mexico (INM). All were adult men, officials said.
It’s not immediately clear how the fire was brought under control, whether there were emergency exits or what protocols authorities had put in place to deal with the protests.
(Reporting by José Luís González in Ciudad Juárez; additional reporting by Dave Graham, Lizbeth Diaz, Raul Cortes Fernandez, Daina Solomon and Isabel Woodford in Mexico City, Sofia Menchu in Guatemala City and Michelle Nichols in New York City);
#migrants #die #fire #protest #Mexico #detention #center
