The fire that occurred in the Provisional Stay of Juarez CityChihuahua, has so far left a balance of 39 immigrants dead and 29 injured in delicate and serious condition so far, according to the National Institute of Migration (INM), in one of the deadliest events that occurred in a dungeon of an immigration center Mexican.
In the following video published by the Reform Agency with graphic content, you can see how the brutal fire was.
At the time of the fire, 68 men from Central and South America were being held at the facility, the agency said.
The spokesman for the Presidency of Mexico, Jesús Ramírez Cuevas, had previously announced that the death toll was 40.
Immigration authorities identified the dead and injured as coming from Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Venezuela, Colombia and Ecuador, according to a statement from the Mexican attorney general’s office. Guatemalan Foreign Minister Mario Búcaro said 28 of the dead were Guatemalan citizens.
Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador blamed a migrant protest for the fire.
“This had to do with a protest that they started, from, we assume, that they found out that they were going to be deported, mobilized, and as a protest, they put mats at the door of the shelter and set them on fire,” AMLO declared.
The president “informed that the accident occurred because of a protest and that the director of the INM (Francisco Garduño) and the FGR (Attorney General of the Republic) are already investigating to determine the responsibilities,” according to Ramírez Cuevas.
Tensions between authorities and migrants had apparently escalated in recent weeks in Ciudad Juárez, where shelters are full of people waiting for opportunities to cross into the US or for the asylum process.
America offers help
The United States regretted this Tuesday the death of at least 39 people in a migrant shelter in Mexico and said that this tragedy is a “heartbreaking reminder” of the risks migrants face on their journey.
“I want to express my deepest condolences to the families of those who lost their lives in last night’s tragic fire at the Ciudad Juárez detention center. Our hearts go out to their loved ones,” said State Department deputy spokesman Vedant Patel at a news conference.
The official explained that the Joe Biden government is “ready to provide any help” that the Mexican authorities may request while they investigate the causes of the fire.
Keep reading:
• Videos show the tragedy of the death of 40 migrants in Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua
• Other tragedies that have cost the lives of migrants as they pass through Mexico
• The UN calls for an exhaustive investigation into the death of migrants in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico