Mexican army troops opened fire on a truck carrying migrants from a half dozen countries, and six migrants from Egypt, Peru, and Honduras died in an event that President Claudia Sheinbaum described on Thursday, October 3rd, as “deplorable.”
Three of the dead were from Egypt, and one each from Peru and Honduras. The other has apparently not yet been identified. Authorities have not yet released their ages, but at least one may have been a minor.
Ten other migrants were wounded in the shooting. but there was no immediate information on their conditions.
Peru’s Foreign Ministry confirmed one Peruvian was killed and demanded “an urgent investigation” into the killings. Peru and Mexico have had damaged relations since a 2022 diplomatic spat.
Sheinbaum said the two soldiers who opened fire on Tuesday, her first day in office, had been turned over to civilian prosecutors for questioning, but apparently, had not yet been charged. It was the worst killing of migrants by authorities in Mexico since police in the northern state of Tamaulipas killed 17 migrants in 2021.
She said the shootings were being investigated to see if any commanders might face punishment, and noted: “A situation like this cannot be repeated.”
But she left out any mention of that later Thursday at a ceremony at a Mexico City army base, where army and navy commanders pledged their loyalty to her in front of massed combat vehicles and hundreds of troops.
“In our country, there is not a state of siege, there are no violations of human rights,” Sheinbaum said, as she promised wage increases for soldiers and sailors.
The shootings Tuesday occurred near the city of Tapachula, in the southern state of Chiapas near the border with Guatemala, Mexico’s Defense Department said Wednesday in a statement.
The Defense Department initially said that soldiers claimed to have heard shots as a convoy of three trucks passed the soldiers’ position.
The Attorney General’s Office later said all three trucks ignored orders to stop and tried to flee. The soldiers pursued them and reported coming under fire from the convoy, and returned fire.
One of the trucks eventually stopped, the driver reportedly fled, and a total of 33 migrants were found aboard, from the three countries already mentioned, as well as Nepal, Cuba, India, and Pakistan.
The Defense Department said four of the migrants were found dead, and 12 wounded. Two of the wounded later died of their injuries.
Local prosecutors confirmed all the victims died of gunshot wounds. Neither prosecutors nor the Defense Department specified whether the migrants died as a result of army fire, and Sheinbaum refused to say whether any weapons were found in the migrants’ truck.
The area is a common route for smuggling migrants, who are often packed into crowded freight trucks. It has also been the scene of drug cartel turf battles, and the department said the trucks “were similar to those used by criminal groups in the region.”
The two soldiers who opened fire were also relieved of duty pending investigations. In Mexico, any incident involving civilians is subject to civilian prosecution, but soldiers can also face court-martial for those offenses.
Source: OEM
