The Mexican president assured Wednesday that there would be “no impunity” after the fire that killed 38 people in a migrant detention center in Ciudad Juarez, in northern Mexico on the border with the United States. United.
“We are not going to hide anything and there is not going to be impunity,” assured President Andrés Manuel Lopez Obrador, announcing the presentation of a first report by the authorities on this fire which also left 28 injured. The presentation is expected at 5:30 p.m. Mexico City time (23:30 GMT).
He asked that “those who caused this painful tragedy be punished in accordance with the law”.
The president confirmed the authenticity of a 32-second video broadcast by several media, including AFP.
These video surveillance images show the start of the fire in the night from Monday to Tuesday. We can see, behind the bars, in the smoke, a man kicking against a closed door while another seems to put down a mattress on the ground.
In the foreground, on the other side of the cell, three officers, two of whom are in uniform, retire with their backs to them, without giving them assistance.
At first, the Mexican president had estimated that the migrants had lit the fire with mattresses in a movement of “protest”.
“We assume that they learned that they were going to be deported, moved,” he said on Tuesday a few hours after this tragedy, unprecedented in facilities for migrants in Mexico.
“Our government does not allow the violation of human rights or impunity,” he insisted on Wednesday, seeming to change his tune under the pressure of the video which provoked outraged reactions.
“How is it possible that the Mexican authorities left human beings locked up with no possibility of escaping the fire?” Erika Guevara Rosas, Amnesty International’s director for the Americas, asked in a statement on Tuesday. .
This video is “heartbreaking”, said White House spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre.
She said officials in Mexico and the United States were in contact, with the possibility that some victims could receive medical assistance in the United States.
“We demand that the competent bodies investigate what happened thoroughly and bring those responsible to justice,” El Salvador said, saying four of its nationals were among the seriously injured.
“Government, assume your responsibilities,” read a banner held by a protester at a rally in Mexico City.
The authorities had still not given Wednesday the identity and the number of deaths by nationality. The condition of the injured was also not specified.
Guatemala said 28 of its nationals died in the blaze.
The Mexican authorities also spoke of Hondurans, Venezuelans, Salvadorans among the victims.
Dozens of migrants spent the night in front of the facilities of the National Institute for Migration (INM), where the fire occurred.
Venezuelan Gilbert Zabaleta is looking for two of his friends. “We want to know if they were inside or not,” he told AFP.
“We pray for the migrants who died yesterday in the tragic fire in Ciudad Juarez,” Pope Francis said.
Following the tragedy, the United Nations pleaded for “safer” migration routes to the United States and the American ambassador to Mexico insisted on “fixing a broken migration system” with its partners in the region.
Ciudad Juarez, neighboring El Paso (Texas), is one of the border towns from which many undocumented migrants seek to reach the United States to seek asylum after a long journey.
US President Joe Biden took new restrictive measures in February, forcing migrants to apply in transit countries or online.
The measures also provide for more frequent recourse by the United States to immediate expulsions, accompanied by a ban on new entry into their territory for five years.
Some 200,000 people try to cross the border between Mexico and its northern neighbor every month. Migrants say they want to escape poverty or violence in their countries of origin.
Since 2014, around 7,661 migrants have died or disappeared en route to US territory, according to the International Organization for Migration (IOM).
03/30/2023 01:13:48 – Ciudad Juárez (Mexique) (AFP) – © 2023 AFP
