The number of deaths in a fire in an immigration center rises to 40

The death toll in a fire in an immigration detention center of Ciudad Juárez rose to 40, the government reported on Monday.

The Secretary of Security and Citizen Protection indicated in a statement that one of the 28 injured left by the incident died during the air transfer from Ciudad Juárez to the National Center for Investigation and Care of Burns (CENIAQ) located in the Mexican capital.

Most of the victims of the deadly fire were from Guatemala, Venezuela, Honduras and El Salvador.

Of the total number of injured, 23 remain hospitalized, the government specified. Over the weekend, the authorities airlifted six of the injured to the National Institute of Respiratory Diseases and CENIAQ in Mexico City. The rest of the injured remain in different health centers in Ciudad Juárez, in the state of Chihuahua.

The director of the General Hospital of Ciudad Juárez, Carlos Tadeo Perzabal, said on Monday that eleven of the injured remain hospitalized in that center and are in serious condition, due to the fact that they have affected different organs and systems. He added that two of the patients will undergo a special procedure for acute kidney failure.

In the case, arrest warrants were issued for six people who face charges of manslaughter and battery. The federal prosecutor’s office is also investigating other people.

Among the defendants are three officials from the National Migration Institute (INM), two security guards from the detention center and a migrant who is accused of having started the fire.

Video from a security camera from inside the Ciudad Juárez facility showed guards walking out when the fire started in the cell where dozens of migrants were being held without making the slightest attempt to free them. It is unknown if those guards had the keys to the cell.

President Andrés Manuel López Obrador ratified on Monday that there will be no impunity for those guilty of the incident that occurred on the night of March 27.

When questioned about whether the head of the INM, Francisco Garduño, would be prosecuted for failing to comply with the presidential order not to hire private security companies for the security of public facilities, López Obrador asked to wait for the progress of the investigations carried out by the Attorney General’s Office. Republic.

The security of the center where the fatal event occurred was in charge of the private company Grupo de Seguridad Privada CAMSA.

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