All but six of the 53 migrants found dead or dying in a truck trailer in Texas last week have been identified, authorities said Wednesday.
The Bexar County medical examiner’s office said 22 of the dead were natives of Mexico, 19 from Guatemala and six from Honduras.
migrants were found on June 27 in a trailer parked on a secondary road outside San Antonio. The suspected driver of the truck was scheduled to appear in federal court Wednesday for a detention hearing.
The coroner’s office said the dead included four teenagers: one 13-year-old and one 14-year-old from Guatemala and two 16-year-olds from Mexico.
One survivor of the trip, a 20-year-old Guatemalan woman, told the AP that the smugglers had covered the floor of the trailer with what she believes was powdered chicken broth, apparently to confuse law enforcement dogs at a checkpoint.
The truck was carrying 73 people in total when it was found. Federal prosecutors say four people have been arrested in connection with the truck’s discovery, including the driver.
Guatemala’s investigation into the smuggling rings is moving slowly, admitted Stuardo Campo, the prosecutor overseeing the case. He explained that investigators believe there were four smuggling structures involved. His office is working with his counterparts in Mexico and the US Department of Homeland Security.
The Guatemalan Foreign Ministry has said that most of the 22 Guatemalan victims came from the department of San Marcos, which borders Mexico.
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