The crash of a bus that was transporting “mostly” Venezuelan migrants left 15 people dead and 36 injured, the Puebla Ministry of the Interior reported on Tuesday, detailing that the majority of the deceased are Venezuelan nationals.
The accident took place early Tuesday morning on a highway that connects Puebla with the southern state of Oaxaca, the ministry said.
“The injured passengers between men and women were transferred to the General Hospital of the city of Tehuacán and 9 of them to the entity’s Health Centers,” the office added on the social network.
The governor of Oaxaca, Salomón Jara, confirmed the accident also in his account, although without specifying the number of deaths and injuries.
“I have instructed the heads of the relevant dependencies to collaborate as necessary, as well as provide support to the injured people. We send a hug and our condolences to the families of the deceased,” Jara wrote.
The accident is the latest in a string of incidents of this type that have occurred in buses that travel overcrowded with migrants on Mexican highways.
As is well known, numerous irregular Venezuelan migrants travel the highways of that country in search of reaching the border with the United States to seek refuge or attempt to cross illegally.
In this regard, the figures are revealing: More than 2.7 million people were intercepted by the United States on its borders with Mexico.
Most travel clandestinely, hidden in cargo trucks, in overcrowded conditions and subjected to mistreatment at the hands of “polleros”, as people traffickers are known.
Travelers not only face the danger of serious accidents, but traffickers do not always keep their word and lack compassion.
Last week, the authorities of the Aztec country found a group of migrants abandoned to their fate on the bus they were traveling. Upon questioning, it was discovered that they came from far away: 129 were from Egypt and another 9 from Mauritania.
At the beginning of August, at least 18 people died and another 23 were injured after a bus with local passengers and migrants from countries such as India, the Dominican Republic and the African continent fell into a ravine in the state of Nayarit (northwest).
On July 28, the tragedy took place in Tabasco, when five Hondurans also died in a road accident.
In February, another clash in the same border area between Puebla and Oaxaca left 17 dead and 15 injured, including migrants from Venezuela, Colombia and Central America.
The bloodiest accident involving migrants was recorded in December 2021, when a trailer truck carrying more than 160 people collided with a bridge in the state of Chiapas (south), leaving more than 50 dead, most of them Central Americans.
Source: Semana
