- Title: "Very painful." Mexico's President laments horror truck crash
- Date: 10th December 2021
- Summary: TUXLA GUTIERREZ, CHIAPAS, MEXICO (DECEMBER 10, 2021) (REUTERS) NATIONAL GUARDS AT TRUCK CRASH SITE LIT CANDLES AND FOOD AT CRASH SITE TO HONOUR VICTIMS PRIEST PRAYING AT CRASH SITE VARIOUS OF A PERSON PLACING FLOWERS AT CRASH SITE VARIOUS OF CITY WORKERS CLEANING AT ACCIDENT SITE
- Embargoed: 24th December 2021 23:50
- Keywords: Guatemala Mexico accident crash migration truck
- Location: TUXTLA GUTIERREZ, CHIAPAS & CHIHUAHUA, CHIHUAHUA, MEXICO
- City: TUXTLA GUTIERREZ, CHIAPAS & CHIHUAHUA, CHIHUAHUA, MEXICO
- Country: Mexico
- Topics: Ground Accidents/Collisions,Disaster/Accidents,South America / Central America
- Reuters ID: LVA001F7GDXS7
- Aspect Ratio: 16:9
- Story Text: Mexico's President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador expressed on Friday (December 10) his consternation at the death of more than 50 migrants in a horrific accident in southern Mexico where a truck carrying migrants flipped over.
"It is very painful when these cases occur," said Lopez Obrador from Chihuahua in his daily news conference.
"It has not been possible to address the root causes of the migratory phenomenon," he said.
According to authorities, most of the 55 people killed and the dozens injured when a truck packed with migrants flipped over in southern Mexico on Thursday (December 9) were Guatemalans.
People spilled from the truck carrying an estimated 166 travellers after it crashed on a curve outside the city of Tuxtla Gutierrez in the state of Chiapas, causing one of the worst death tolls of migrants in Mexico in the past decade.
The government said state prosecutors had opened a murder investigation into the incident, which officials in Chiapas said had claimed the lives of 55 people, including a 16-year-old girl, and injured dozens more.
The attorney general's office said preliminary findings showed nearly all the victims were Guatemalans. Chiapas officials said three people from the Dominican Republic, a Honduran, a Mexican, and an Ecuadorean were among the injured.
Video footage showed bodies strewn on the ground after the overturned truck slammed to a halt by a highway footbridge. A few local residents reported seeing migrants fleeing the scene, while other survivors sat in stunned silence or struggled to get up.
In hospitals, doctors tended to shaken-up survivors of the crash who had broken bones and suffered cuts and bruises.
The head of Mexico's National Guard, Luis Rodriguez, said at a government news conference that the truck driver fled the scene and that the migrants on board told authorities they had entered Chiapas a few days before the accident took place.
Each month, thousands of migrants fleeing poverty and violence in Central America travel through Mexico to reach the U.S. border. They often cram inside large trucks organized by smugglers in dangerous conditions.
Many migrants fall prey to criminal gangs en route. In January, 19 people, mostly migrants, were massacred with suspected police involvement in northern Mexico.
Record numbers of people have been arrested on the U.S.-Mexico border this year as migrants seek to capitalize on President Joe Biden's pledge to pursue more humane immigration policies than his hardline predecessor, Donald Trump.
(Production: Jacob Garcia, Alejandra Lorena, Manuel Carrillo, Nina Lopez, Liamar Ramos) - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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