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The National Institute of Migration of Mexico confirmed the balance of the fire: 39 foreigners died and 29 seriously injured. President López Obrador accuses the migrants of starting the fire. Guatemala reported that 28 dead migrants originate from that country.
“Where did they take my husband?!” the young Venezuelan Viangly shouts desperately, at the gates of the immigration center in Ciudad Juárez, where her 27-year-old husband remained after being detained.
The young woman knows that her husband is among the victims of the fire, but she does not know his state of health: “They took him in an ambulance. The immigration agents do not tell you anything, a relative could die and they do not tell you ‘he is dead ‘”.
The fire would have originated on Monday night, in a space where 68 men had been held, all of them of legal age from Central and South America. Firefighters were quickly mobilized, as well as dozens of ambulances. The lifeguards removed the bodies to put them in the parking area of the immigration center before being removed by forensic personnel while the place remained guarded during the early hours of the morning by the military and national guards. The 29 injured were transferred to four hospitals, where their condition is serious.
The Mexican president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, indicated in his daily press conference that the fire was caused by migrants who were protesting not to be deported: “This had to do with a protest that they started, from, we suppose, that they found out that they were going to be deported, mobilized, and as a protest at the door of the shelter they put up mats and set them on fire, and they did not imagine that this was going to cause this terrible misfortune.”
Thousands of migrants stranded in Ciudad Juárez
Ciudad Juárez is one of the border towns where thousands of migrants hope to cross into the United States to seek refuge.Fed up with waiting, hundreds of them, most of them Venezuelans, tried to stampede across an international bridge on March 13, but US agents prevented them from passing.
A recent report from the International Organization for Migration (IOM) indicates that, since 2014, some 7,661 migrants have died or disappeared on their way to the United States. 988 died from traveling in subhuman conditions.
The president of the United States, Joe Biden, toughened immigration policy, forcing migrants from Ukraine, Venezuela, Cuba, Nicaragua and Haiti to request asylum from the countries through which they transit or to request an appointment online. These measures are announced at a time when the Democratic president is accused by the Republican opposition of having lost control of the border, with more than 4.5 million people intercepted without papers in that region since he took office.
28 Guatemalans
Hours after the fire, the Guatemalan government reported that among the 39 dead in the fire at a migrant detention center in Mexico there are 28 Guatemalans.
“So far, 28 Guatemalans have been confirmed among the victims” of the fire in Mexico, the Guatemalan Institute of Migration said in a statement, adding that it is waiting for more information “in order to provide support and accompaniment to the families.”
