Three migrants and two Mexican nationals have died and a dozen migrants are recovering from injuries following a turn of fate on the highway in northern Mexico, the country’s National Migration Institute said on Tuesday.
The 3 migrants killed included a woman from Honduras; the nationalities of the other two remained unclear. The van the migrants were driving crashed in the northern border state of Nuevo Leon.
It is transparent whether the deceased Mexicans understood the driving force of the vehicle.
The injured included people from Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala and Nicaragua. The institute said they would be given humanitarian visas, and the bodies of those deceased would be returned to their home countries.
Victims of crashes involving migrant smuggling are generally considered crime victims in Mexico, and thus are eligible for such visas.
Immigrants smuggling has become increasingly risky in Mexico, with dozens of migrants often found stuffed into freight trucks or buses.
On Tuesday, authorities said angry residents of a town on Mexico’s southern border seized three Mexican immigration agents to demand the National Guard and soldiers combat rampant migrants smuggling operations.
Residents say the migrants smugglers frequently attack, rob or threaten them.
Residents of the city of Frontera Comalapa, near the Guatemalan border, blocked a local highway and refused to let officials through on Monday, according to a Chiapas prosecutor’s office workplace worker who would not allow his name.
The immigration institute said it was confident the officials would soon be released.
In May, six migrants were killed and 25 injured after a bus they were riding on overturned against a railing and plunged down an embankment in the northern state of San Luis Potosi. All those who suffered this twist of fate were migrants from Honduras, El Salvador and Cuba.
A much larger truck carrying migrants overturned on a highway near the city of Tuxtla Gutierrez in December, killing at least 56 people.
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