54 people were killed and more than 100 injured when a truck overturned in southern Mexico. Most of the victims are believed to be migrants from Central America, local officials sai. The incident happened in Mexico’s Chiapas state, which borders Guatemala.
It was one of the worst single-day death tolls for migrants in Mexico since the Zetas drug group massacred 72 migrants in 2010.
The victims seemed to be Central American immigrants. However, their nationalities were not confirmed yet. But migration from Central American nations such as Honduras, Guatemala, and Nicaragua is highly frequent. As a result of violence, corruption, food shortages, and a lack of economic opportunity.
It appears that the truck tipped over due to the sheer weight of its human load and that when it did so, it crashed with the base of a steel pedestrian bridge.
Even more, migrants were all on board the truck when it crashed. According to rescue workers, and many fled for fear of being arrested by immigration authorities. Besides this, the container was smashed open by the force of the impact, and it is unclear if the driver survived.
Survivors of the Mexican tractor-trailer attack described paying between $2,500 and $3,500 to be transported from Mexico to the United States by smugglers, who would have carried them to the US border. Survivors said the migrants informed them they boarded the truck in Mexico near the Guatemalan border and paid up to $4,000 for their passage.
In October, Mexican authorities found 652 mainly Central American migrants jammed into a convoy of six freight trucks heading toward the US border. Irineo Mujica blames Mexico’s policies of cracking down on migrant caravans for the disaster. His group had almost reached the outskirts of Mexico City on Thursday.
Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has called for an end to the torture, murder, and deportation of migrants heading towards the country from Central America.
He shared his condolences on Twitter.
“I deeply regret the tragedy caused by the overturning of a trailer in Chiapas carrying Central American migrants,” the President said. “It’s very painful. I hug the families of the victims.”
