As many as 39 people were killed after a massive fire broke out at a migration centre near Mexico-United States border on Tuesday.
According to reports, the fire incident took place at the office of the National Migration Institute (INM) in Ciudad Juarez after the authorities picked up a group of migrants from the streets and detained them.
In the fire, at least 29 people were also injured.
Meanwhile, the INM has not released the cause of the blaze or the victims’ nationalities.
However, Guatemala’s Institute of Migration later confirmed that out of the 39 deceased, 29 were Guatemalan nationals.
Following the tragedy, Mexico President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said, “What we know so far is that migrants from Central America and some from Venezuela were in that shelter. We still do not know exactly the names and nationalities of those who unfortunately lost their lives.”
“This had to do with a protest that they started after, we assume, they found out that they were going to be deported, and as a protest, they put mattresses from the shelter at the door of the shelter, and they set fire to them and they did not imagine that this was going to cause this terrible accident,” he said.
