Photo: Eric Gay/AP/picture-alliance / Deutsche Welle
By: EFE Posted Aug 31, 2023, 11:37 am EDT
“It is a violation of international law because you cannot shoot from that US side to the other side of the river, which is already our territory,” said the president of Mexico in his daily press conference.
Andrés Manuel López Obrador thus referred to the attack that occurred last Saturday on the banks of the Rio Grande in Ciudad Juárez, on the border with the US city of El Paso, Texas, where a National Guard fired from US territory towards Mexico.
Although it was initially mentioned that he was a migrant, local authorities identified the victim as Darwin Jose Garciaa 37-year-old Mexican from Veracruz, who was on a dirt road used by runners and cyclists to exercise more than 10 meters from the bed of the Rio Grande.
“They argue (the Texas authorities) that he was defending a migrant, that the wounded man wanted to harm a migrant and that is why he fired first into the air and then at the person,” López Obrador said. Due to the incident, the Government of Mexico opened an investigation.
Impact on human rights
In addition, officials from the Consulate of Mexico in El Paso met with authorities from the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS), to whom they expressed that what happened “is inadmissible”, in addition to “express concern about the impact on human rights” and in the safety of migrants.
“The wounded man in Ciudad Juárez, fortunately yesterday he was discharged. However, there is an investigation, the person who fired from the Texas Guard has the report that he was temporarily suspended from his position while the full investigation is not carried out ”, indicated López Obrador.
The fact represents a new friction between the Government of Mexico and that of Texas by the anti-immigrant policies of the Texan governor, the Republican Greg Abbott.
On August 3, López Obrador branded Abbott “inhumane” after the death of two people in the Rio Grande, where the Republican placed buoys and a wire fence to prevent the passage of migrants.
The Mexican Ministry of Foreign Affairs (SRE) has sent three diplomatic notes to Washington to complain about the buoys, denouncing that they violate the human rights of migrants and international water treaties.
Keep reading:
– Mexico is investigating Texas National Guard shooting at a man at the border.
– Texas reinforces wire barricade on the Juárez-El Paso border despite order to remove it.