EL PASO, Texas (Border Report) – The president of Mexico says 10 migrant women from Cuba traveling in the cargo area of a commercial truck have died in an accident near the border with Guatemala.
The truck overturned in the Pijijiapan-Tonala Highway in Southeast Chiapas state on Sunday afternoon, killing the women and leaving another 17 migrants, mostly women, injured. The Mexican government and Latin American media outlets published photos of the overturned red truck and survivors sitting on the side of the road as first responders placed others in ambulances.
Cuban Consul Miguel Angel Moreno Carpio told Mexican and international news media his government has established contact with the relatives of the victims and has sent representatives to assist the survivors in Chiapas.
“We regret there was an accident in Chiapas and women from Cuba, migrant women, died. This is why we will continue to insist on addressing the causes of migration, the origins, go in-depth and put aside the politics” President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said Monday in a news conference broadcast on YouTube.
“Yesterday’s tragedy in Chiapas was on a semi-trailer, all this managed by a mafia of people traffickers. But the bottom line is the need to go out and find work, security, and we must address those causes.”
Lopez Obrador said he will meet this week with U.S. and Central American government representatives to address the latest spike in migration to the United States, which affects Mexico as well.
“Up to 4,000 migrants crossed the border of Colombia and Panama headed to Southern Mexico. Once they cross the border into Chiapas, the number grows to 6,000 a day. Last week, the northern border saw 10,000 migrants per day,” Lopez Obrador said on Monday. “They pass through Mexico taking lots of risks, (enduring) human rights violations, gangs that kidnap migrants, murder and tragedies due to highway accidents because they hire trucks in bad shape.”
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