The Mexican attorney general announced this on Thursday (local time). The accident happened when the truck overturned on a sharp turn outside the city in Chiapas state, said Luis Manuel Garcia, head of the local civil protection agency.
According to civil defense, the fatalities include men, women and children. Several dozen people were also injured in the accident, who, according to the authorities, were taken to hospitals in the area. Videos of the rescue operation are already circulating on social media. President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador expressed his regret over the incident on Twitter.
Mexico’s National Migration Institute said it would offer shelter and humanitarian visas to survivors. According to the governor of Chiapas, Rutilio Escandon, those responsible for the accident should be brought to justice. “It shows us that this type of migration is not the best way to go,” Kevin Lopez, a spokesman for the Guatemalan Presidency, told Milenio television. El Salvador’s Foreign Minister Alexandra Hill said her government was working to find out if Salvadorans had died.
The Mexican authorities regularly come across migrants hidden in truck trailers. Last month, 600 people were found in two trucks in eastern Mexico. Migrants fleeing poverty and violence in Central America typically roam Mexico to reach the US border, sometimes squeezing themselves into smugglers’ trucks in extremely dangerous conditions.
Source: Nachrichten
