Overseas Ministry officers maintain portraits beside the coffins of Guatemalan migrants whose stays arrived on the La Aurora Air Pressure Base in Guatemala Metropolis on Tuesday. The Mexican Air Pressure transported the our bodies of 17 migrants who died in a hearth at an immigration detention middle in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico.
Moises Castillo/AP
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Moises Castillo/AP
Overseas Ministry officers maintain portraits beside the coffins of Guatemalan migrants whose stays arrived on the La Aurora Air Pressure Base in Guatemala Metropolis on Tuesday. The Mexican Air Pressure transported the our bodies of 17 migrants who died in a hearth at an immigration detention middle in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico.
Moises Castillo/AP
MEXICO CITY — Mexico’s prime immigration official will face prison costs in a hearth that killed 40 migrants in Ciudad Juárez final month, with federal prosecutors saying he was remiss in not stopping the catastrophe regardless of earlier indications of issues at his company’s detention facilities.
The choice to file costs in opposition to Francisco Garduño, the pinnacle of Mexico’s Nationwide Immigration Institute, was introduced late Tuesday by the federal Lawyer Basic’s Workplace.
It adopted repeated calls from inside Mexico, and from some Central American nations, to not cease the case on the 5 low-level officers, guards and a Venezuelan migrant already dealing with murder costs within the case.
On Wednesday, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador stated that though the Lawyer Basic’s Workplace was investigating Garduño, prosecutors had revealed few particulars and it was not precisely clear what they might cost him with.
“We’re going to wait and we’re going to make selections within the (proper) second,” López Obrador stated.
Anger initially targeted on two guards who had been seen fleeing the March 27 fireplace, with out unlocking the cell door to permit the migrants to flee. However President Andrés Manuel López Obrador stated earlier Tuesday that they did not have the keys.
Different officers additionally face costs
The Lawyer Basic’s Workplace stated a number of different officers of Garduño’s company will even face costs for failing to hold out their duties, the assertion stated, however prosecutors didn’t clarify what particular costs or determine the officers.
Prosecutors stated the case confirmed a “sample of irresponsibility”
The press workplace of the immigration company that Garduño heads did reply to messages and telephone calls requesting remark.
Prosecutors stated that after a hearth at one other detention middle within the Gulf coast state of Tabasco killed one individual and injured 14 in 2020, the immigration company knew there have been issues which wanted to be corrected however alleged they did not act.
There have lengthy been complaints about corruption and dangerous circumstances at Mexico’s migrant detention amenities, however they’ve by no means been significantly addressed.
López Obrador’s feedback concerning the guards in final month’s fireplace within the border metropolis of Ciudad Juárez got here on the identical day that the our bodies of 17 Guatemala migrants and 6 Hondurans killed within the fireplace had been flown again to their house nations.
It was unclear what impact López Obrador’s feedback might need on the trial of the guards, who had been detained beforehand over the hearth.
“The door was closed, as a result of the one who had the keys wasn’t there,” López Obrador stated.
A video from a safety digicam inside the ability exhibits guards strolling away when the hearth began in late March contained in the cell holding migrants.
The guards are seen hurrying away as smoke fills the ability, and they didn’t seem to make any effort to launch the migrants.
Three Mexican immigration officers, a guard and a Venezuelan migrant are being held for investigation in reference to the hearth. They face murder costs.
The migrant allegedly set fireplace to foam mattresses on the detention middle to protest what he apparently thought had been plans to maneuver or deport the migrants.
In Guatemala, a somber welcome
In Guatemala Metropolis, relations of the victims gathered at an air power base with flowers and photographs of the deceased to mark their return.
“My son, my love,” a feminine voice could possibly be heard calling out, amid sobs from these current because the coffins had been unloaded and positioned in a line, and relations had been allowed to strategy them.
Mexican navy planes carried the our bodies of six migrants to Honduras and 17 to Guatemala. Authorities say 19 of the 40 useless had been from Guatemala, however two our bodies had been nonetheless within the course of of getting their identities confirmed.
An extra 11 Guatemalans had been injured within the fireplace.
Guatemalan Overseas Minister Mario Búcaro accompanied the our bodies, which had been to be taken overland to their hometowns in 9 completely different provinces.
Some our bodies of Salvadoran migrants had been returned to El Salvador final week. Up to now, 31 our bodies have been despatched again to their house nations.
