By MARÍA VERZA (Associated Press)
MEXICO CITY (AP) — Migrants fearing deportation set mattresses ablaze at an immigration detention heart in northern Mexico, beginning a hearth that left 39 lifeless, the president mentioned Tuesday following one of many the deadliest incidents ever at an immigration lockup within the nation.
Hours after the fireplace broke out late Monday, rows of our bodies have been laid out below shimmery silver sheets outdoors the power in Ciudad Juarez, which is throughout from El Paso, Texas, and a significant crossing level for migrants. Ambulances, firefighters and vans from the morgue swarmed the scene.
Thirty-nine folks died and 29 have been injured and are in “delicate-serious” situation, in line with the National Immigration Institute. There have been 68 males from Central and South America held within the facility on the time of the fireplace, the company mentioned. A Guatemalan official mentioned many might have been from that Central American nation.
President Andrés Manuel López Obrador mentioned the fireplace was began by migrants inside the power in protest after studying they’d be deported.
“They never imagined that this would cause this terrible misfortune,” López Obrador mentioned, including that the director of nation’s immigration company was on the scene.
Tensions between authorities and migrants had apparently been operating excessive in latest weeks in Ciudad Juarez, the place shelters are full of individuals ready for alternatives to cross into the U.S. or who’ve requested asylum there and are ready out the method.
More than 30 migrant shelters and different advocacy organizations printed an open letter March 9 that complained of a criminalization of migrants and asylum seekers within the metropolis. It accused authorities of abuse and utilizing extreme pressure in rounding up migrants, complaining that municipal police have been questioning folks on the street about their immigration standing with out trigger.
The excessive degree of frustration in Ciudad Juarez was evident earlier this month when tons of of largely Venezuelan migrants appearing on false rumors that the United States would enable them to enter the nation tried to pressure their method throughout one of many worldwide bridges to El Paso. U.S. authorities blocked their makes an attempt.
The nationwide immigration company mentioned Tuesday that it “energetically rejects the actions that led to this tragedy” with none additional clarification of what these actions might need been.
In latest years, as Mexico has stepped up efforts to stem the movement migration to the U.S. border below stress from the American authorities, the company has struggled with overcrowding in its amenities. And the nation’s immigration lockups have seen protests and riots occasionally.
Mostly Venezuelan migrants rioted inside an immigration heart in Tijuana in October that needed to be managed by police and National Guard troops. In November, dozens of migrants rioted in Mexico’s largest detention heart within the southern metropolis of Tapachula close to the border with Guatemala. No one died in both incident.
Karla Samayoa, spokeswoman for Guatemala’s Foreign Ministry, mentioned that Mexican authorities had knowledgeable them that greater than two dozen of the migrants who died gave the impression to be from the nation.
___
Associated Press author Sonia Pérez D. in Guatemala City contributed to this report.
Source: www.bostonherald.com”