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The traffic accident is one of the largest in recent years and reflects the immigration drama of thousands of people trying to reach the US border. Most of the people who traveled were from Central American countries and they traveled crammed into the vehicle along with 58 other people who were injured.
It is a new episode of the harshness that Central American migrants face on their journey to the United States border. The Mexican state of Chiapas registered a truck accident in which at least 49 migrants who were traveling in the trailer died. This accident is one of the worst in recent years in this North American nation.
The trailer was transporting more than 100 people in overcrowded conditions, so when cornering too quickly, the vehicle overturned under its own weight and caused people to fall over each other. Most of them were from El Salvador and Guatemala.
According to versions of the injured people, the trip began in the city of Comitán de Domínguez, Chiapas, near the border with Guatemala, while witnesses to the accident said that the rollover occurred due to speeding.
“The testimonies indicated that the truck was speeding and when it took a sharp curve it overturned and the box where the migrants were traveling fell off,” said Luis Manuel García Moreno, Chiapas Secretary of Civil Protection.
A reflection of the migration crisis in the region
This situation is only a reflection of the migratory crisis that is experienced from the southern border of Mexico to the northern border with the United States. Thousands of people have been fleeing Central American countries north for years in the hope of leaving behind the systemic violence of their nations, poverty or the direct consequences of natural disasters.
During this time, the harshness of the Mexican authorities to prevent their passage through this nation to the United States has increased considerably to the point that President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has received numerous criticisms.
These people, therefore, and given the impossibility of being able to access Mexico by legal means, are forced to turn to illegal and dangerous roads that are controlled by mafias and armed groups. His journey north is fraught with uncertainties and risks.
Many times, these risks are taken out of fear of not being detected by the authorities of the country that are going through and involve situations like those experienced by the 107 migrants who traveled in the truck in Chiapas. Mexican authorities have intercepted 228,115 migrants and deported 82,627 from January to October 2021, numbers not seen in more than 15 years.
With Reuters and EFE
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