MEXICO CITY (AP) — Mexican military troops opened hearth on a truck carrying migrants from a half dozen nations, and 6 migrants from Egypt, Peru and El Salvador died in an occasion that President Claudia Sheinbaum described Thursday as “deplorable.”
Ten different migrants had been wounded within the taking pictures. Sheinbaum didn’t say what number of migrants from every nation had been killed, and Mexico’s overseas relations division was not instantly capable of present particulars.
Sheinbaum mentioned the 2 troopers who opened hearth on Tuesday, her first day in workplace, had been turned over to civilian prosecutors for questioning, however apparently had not but been charged.
She mentioned the shootings had been being investigated to see if any commanders may face punishment, and famous “a state of affairs like this can’t be repeated.”
It was the worst killing of migrants by authorities in Mexico since police within the northern state of Tamaulipas killed 17 migrants in 2021.
The shootings occurred Tuesday close to the city of Huixtla, within the southern state of Chiapas close to the border with Guatemala, Mexico’s Protection Division mentioned Wednesday in a press release.
The division mentioned that troopers claimed they heard pictures as a convoy of three vans approached the troopers’ place. In a considerably confused account, the division mentioned the primary car in a three-truck convoy appeared to hurry away from troopers.
Two troopers fired on one other of the vans, which was additionally carrying migrants from Nepal, Cuba, India, Pakistan and a minimum of one different nation. Troopers then approached the truck and located 4 of the migrants useless, and 12 wounded. Two of the wounded later died of their accidents.
Native prosecutors confirmed all of the victims died of gunshot wounds. The Protection Division didn’t say whether or not the migrants died because of military hearth, and Sheinbaum refused to say whether or not any weapons had been discovered within the migrants’ truck.
There have been 17 different migrants within the truck who had been unhurt. The car was carrying a complete of 33 migrants. The world is a typical route for smuggling migrants, who are sometimes packed into crowded freight vans.
The 2 troopers who opened hearth had been additionally relieved of responsibility pending investigations. In Mexico, any incident involving civilians is topic to civilian prosecution, however troopers may face court-martial for these offenses.
Irineo Mujica, a migrant rights activist who has ceaselessly accompanied caravans of migrants in that space of Chiapas, mentioned he doubted the migrants or their smugglers opened hearth.
“It’s actually not possible that these individuals would have been taking pictures on the military,” Mujica mentioned. “More often than not, they get by means of by paying bribes.”
The U.N. company for refugees in Mexico, often called the ACNUR, wrote that it “expresses its concern concerning the occasions in Chiapas,” noting “individuals in migration are uncovered to nice dangers throughout their journey, and that’s the reason it’s indispensable they’ve authorized technique of entry, journey, and integration to keep away from tragedies like these.”
If the deaths had been the results of military hearth, as seems probably, it might show a serious embarrassment for Sheinbaum, who on Thursday attended an enormous navy ceremony the place the armed forces pledged their loyalty to her.
The brand new president has adopted the lead of former president Andrés Manuel López Obrador in giving the armed forces extraordinary powers in regulation enforcement, state-run firms , airports, trains and building tasks.
It isn’t the primary time Mexican forces have opened hearth on autos carrying migrants within the space, which can also be the thing of turf battles between warring drug cartels.
In 2021, the quasi-military Nationwide Guard opened hearth on a pickup truck carrying migrants, killing one and wounding 4. The Guard officers initially claimed a few of these within the migrants’ truck had been armed and had fired pictures, however the governmental Nationwide Human Rights Fee later discovered that was not true.
And in 2021, state police in Tamaulipas killed 17 migrants and two Mexican residents. These officers additionally initially claimed to have come underneath hearth from the migrants’ autos.
They initially argued they had been responding to pictures fired and believed they had been chasing the autos of considered one of the nation’s drug cartels, which ceaselessly take part in migrant smuggling. However that later turned out to be false, and the police actually burned the victims’ our bodies in an try and cowl up the crime.
Eleven of the policemen had been convicted of murder and sentenced to over 50 years in jail.
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