18 migrants killed in Mexico bus crash
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Thousands of migrants from different countries have been travelling across Mexico in buses, overcrowded trailers and atop freight trains in an attempt to reach the US-Mexican border.
PHOTO: REUTERS
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MEXICO CITY – A bus carrying migrants overturned in southern Mexico on Friday, leaving at least 18 passengers dead and 27 injured, the authorities said. It was the latest fatal road crash involving US-bound migrants.
The dead, three of them minors, were from Venezuela and Haiti, according to a statement from the prosecutor’s office in Oaxaca state.
The accident happened at around dawn on a highway linking Oaxaca and the neighbouring state of Puebla, it said.
The injured were taken to hospital for treatment, it added.
Images released by the state authorities showed the wreckage of the bus lying on its side on a highway winding through hills.
According to Mexico’s national immigration agency, 55 foreigners were on board the bus.
Peruvians were also among the victims, it said.
Thousands of migrants from different countries have been travelling across Mexico in buses, overcrowded trailers and atop freight trains in an attempt to reach the US-Mexican border.
More than 8,200 migrants have died or disappeared in the Americas since 2014, most of them while trying to reach the United States via Mexico, according to the International Organisation for Migration.
The US-Mexican border is the “world’s deadliest migration land route”, with 686 deaths and disappearances in 2022, the IOM said in September.
Last Sunday, at least 10 Cuban migrants were killed and 25 injured when a cargo lorry carrying them overturned in the southern state of Chiapas.
Investigators working next to a covered body at the scene of the crash.
PHOTO: REUTERS
In early August, at least 18 people died and 23 were injured after a bus carrying local passengers and migrants from countries such as India, the Dominican Republic and some African nations plunged into a ravine in the state of Nayarit.
And in December 2021, 56 mostly Central American migrants were killed and dozens injured when a people smugglers’ lorry carrying about 160 people overturned in Chiapas.
The Mexican government has admitted to being overwhelmed by the number of migrants crossing its territory, the vast majority of whom are from Central America, Venezuela, Cuba and Haiti.
The Mexican authorities said they detained more than 189,000 migrants in September, while the US border patrol reported 1.8 million apprehensions between October 2022 and August 2023.
Senior US and Mexican officials pledged on Thursday to redouble their efforts to tackle irregular migration through measures such as modernising border security, increasing legal avenues and addressing the root causes.
The two countries were committed to expanding “safe, orderly and lawful pathways for migrants” but with strict consequences for those who enter the United States illegally, US Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said after talks in Mexico City. AFP
