After a freight truck loaded with as many as 200 migrants toppled over and crashed into the base of a steel pedestrian bridge in southern Mexico, rescue personnel discovered a horrifying sight of death and injury.
The migrants inside the cargo trailer were thrown and crushed in a heap of both living and dead people.
The death toll had risen to 53 by late Thursday, with police reporting that at least 54 others had been injured. It was one of the highest single-day death tolls for migrants in Mexico since the Zetas drug gang massacred 72 migrants in the northern state of Tamaulipas in 2010.
Some migrants attempted to free themselves from the twisted steel sheets of the collapsed container, as volunteer rescuers pulled bodies off the pile by their arms and legs.
One young man, pinned in a mass of motionless bodies, wriggled to free the bottom half of his body, his face pulled into a grimace as he wriggled free from the dead people.
A man sat by the edge of the road, unable to move, blinking his eyes. A stouter and older migrant stood next to him, his eyes lifeless and unblinking towards the fading light.
While the Mexican government is attempting to appease the US by halting caravans of walking migrants and allowing the reinstatement of the “Remain in Mexico” policy, it has been unable to stop the influx of migrants crammed into freight trucks operated by smugglers who charge thousands of dollars to transport them to the US border — trips that all too often end in death.
The most seriously injured, many of whom were bloodied, were taken to plastic sheets laid out on the road by their arms and legs. Those who could walk were led to the same sheets, stunned and perplexed. Ambulances, cars, and pickup trucks were dispatched to transport the injured to hospitals.
The dead were later laid out on the highway in rows of white sheets, side by side.
Even more, migrants were aboard the truck when it crashed, according to rescue workers who arrived first, and they fled for fear of being captured by immigration officers. Some of those who rushed into nearby neighborhoods were bloodied or bruised, but still limped away in their desperation to flee, according to one paramedic.
Jordán Rodas, Guatemala’s top human rights official, estimated that some 200 migrants were stuffed onto the truck. While frightening, that number is not uncommon in Mexican migrant smuggling operations, and investigators believe the weight of the load, combined with speed and a nearby curve, may have thrown the truck off balance.
About 21 of the injured, according to Luis Manuel Moreno, head of the Chiapas state civil defense office, had significant wounds and were evacuated to local hospitals. Three people were badly injured in the incident on a highway running from the Guatemalan border to the Chiapas state capital, according to the federal Attorney General’s Office.
Survivor Celso Pacheco of Guatemala, who was sitting on the pavement next to the overturned trailer, claimed the truck seemed to be rushing before losing control.
According to Pacheco, the migrants were largely from Guatemala and Honduras, and there were eight to ten little children on board. He stated that he was attempting to enter the United States, but that he was now being deported to Guatemala.
Ambulances rushed victims to three hospitals, each carrying three to four injured, according to Marco Antonio Sánchez, head of the Chiapas Firefighter Institute. They placed ambulances into pickup trucks when there weren’t enough, he added.
“I greatly lament the tragedy in Chiapas State,” Guatemalan President Alejandro Giammattei posted on Twitter. “I express my solidarity with the victims’ families, to whom we will provide all necessary consular help, including repatriation.”
Pope Francis, who visited Chiapas in 2015 and has made the plight of migrants a hallmark of his papacy, sent the archbishop of Tuxtla Gutierrez a message of sympathy on Friday. He prayed for them in the note.
The vehicle had started off as a closed freight module for transporting perishable commodities. The force of the hit shattered the container open. The driver’s fate remained unknown.
Survivors said the migrants informed them about boarding the truck near the Guatemalan border in Mexico and paying between $2,500 and $3,500 to be carried to Puebla in central Mexico. They would have probably hired another group of smugglers to transport them to the US border once they arrived.
Mexican officials have attempted to stop migrants from traveling in large groups toward the US border in recent months, but the illegal and covert flow of smugglers has continued.
Authorities in the northern border state of Tamaulipas discovered 652 mostly Central American migrants crowded into a caravan of six trucks in one of the greatest busts in recent memory in October.
Irineo Mujica, an activist leading a march of approximately 400 migrants across southern Mexico for about one and a half months, blamed Thursday’s calamity on Mexico’s crackdown on migrant caravans.
After weeks of battling National Guard officers who attempted to obstruct the march, Mujica and his party were almost on the outskirts of Mexico City. Mujica stated that the group would come to a halt and pray for the deceased migrants.
“Policies that kill us, that murder us, are what lead to tragedies like this,” Mujica explained.
They are, in fact, two distinct groupings. Migrants who lack the thousands of dollars required to pay migrant smugglers are drawn to caravans.
Migrants involved in major incidents are often allowed to stay in Mexico at least temporarily since they are considered witnesses to and victims of a crime, and Mexico’s National Immigration Institute said it would give humanitarian visas to the survivors.
The agency also claimed the Mexican government will help identify the dead and support burial fees or repatriation of their bodies.
Even as his administration has accepted calls from the US government to stop the flow of migrants traveling north, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has been frantic to avert the mass deaths of migrants.
“It’s quite painful,” he commented about the accident on Twitter.
