EL PASO, Texas (Border Report) – Mexico’s Ministry of Defense is acknowledging soldiers shot dead six migrants and wounded another 12 during a high-speed vehicle chase in the southern state of Chiapas.
The killings took place just before 9 p.m. Tuesday on the Comaltitlan-Huixla highway as an army patrol spotted a pickup flanked by two vehicles with steel reinforcements in the back, the Ministry of Defense (SEDENA) said in a statement.
Two soldiers opened fire on the vehicles and disabled one after allegedly hearing gunfire; four people died on the scene, two more died after being taken to hospitals and 12 others were injured, the ministry said.
The deceased were citizens of Egypt, El Salvador and Peru. Mexican news reports said one of the victims was a female child.
President Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo on Thursday called the shooting “regrettable” and said the two soldiers had been separated from their duties and turned over to the Mexican Attorney General’s Office.
“They will investigate how things happened, who is responsible, if (supervisors) were responsible or just the soldiers,” Sheinbaum said at her daily news conference broadcast on YouTube. “Something like this cannot happen again and actions will be taken.”
She said her administration has contacted foreign embassies and offered assistance to relatives of the victims.
The injured migrants and other shooting survivors are citizens of Nepal, India, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Cuba, according to the Ministry of Defense.
The agency said the trucks’ reinforcement was similar to the way drug and migrant traffickers in Chiapas fashion their vehicles, hence the pursuit. There was no immediate word on whether any weapons were found on the fleeing vehicles nor if any smugglers were arrested.
Read: Read More