Mexican authorities vowed to investigate a deadly incident in which its soldiers opened fire on a truck carrying U.S.-bound migrants near the country’s southern border with Guatemala, killing six and injuring at least 10 others.
“It’s a lamentable act that has to be investigated and punished,” Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum told reporters Thursday at her morning news conference.
The incident comes as illicit immigration has become a major issue in the U.S. elections and Washington has been pressuring Mexico to push migrants south and away from the U.S.-Mexico border.
The truck was carrying 33 migrants late Tuesday from various nations, including Egypt, Nepal, Cuba, India and Pakistan, according to a statement from the Mexican military. The six killed were from Egypt, El Salvador and Peru, the president said.
Four died at the scene and two others succumbed at a hospital in the town of Huixtla, about 50 miles north of Mexico’s border with Guatemala in Mexico’s Chiapas state, the military said.
The sprawling state of Chiapas, which shares a long border with Guatemala, is a major transit corridor for migrants from around the world heading for U.S. territory — but also a zone traversed by smugglers ferrying arms, cocaine and other illicit substances.
Chiapas is also engulfed in a brutal turf war between Mexico’s two leading drug cartels that has killed dozens and displaced thousands in recent months.
The military said soldiers were performing “land reconnaissance” in the area when a pickup drove by at high speed, attempting to evade the troops, and was followed by two trucks that appeared “like those used by criminal groups in that region.”
The troops heard “detonations,” the military said, and two soldiers opened fire, stopping a truck that, it turned out, was transporting the migrants. The truck appeared to be the type used to transport cattle, based on images published in Mexican media.
The two soldiers who opened fire were removed from duty, the military said, and authorities from the armed forces and the attorney general’s office are investigating. The inquiry will aim to determine whether the two soldiers are solely responsible or if their commanders share blame, Sheinbaum said.
The incident prompted denunciations from rights groups who have long condemned Mexican authorities for doing what they call “America’s dirty work” by detaining U.S.-bound migrants and often transporting them back to southern Mexico.
“These incidents are neither isolated nor accidents,” declared the Collective for the Monitoring of the Southern Border, an advocacy group. “They are consequences of the restrictive migratory policies that the government of Mexico is implementing.”
The surviving migrants were to be turned over to Mexican immigration authorities, the military said. It was unclear whether they would be subject to deportation or allowed to remain in Mexico.
Special correspondent Cecilia Sánchez Vidal contributed to this report.
