The afternoon of Monday, April 27, was tragic in the U.S. and for several Latin American countries, as the bodies of 50 migrants were found dead in Texas, inside the bed of an abandoned truck southwest of San Antonio.
The terrible news was released by local authorities, who on Tuesday morning confirmed that among the dead there are 22 Mexicans, seven Guatemalans and two Hondurans, while 19 of them have not been identified.
"You don't come to work expecting to open a trailer door and run into a pile of dead people," local fire chief Charles Hood said Monday night.
During a press conference, he detailed that the people locked in the trailer had no water or air conditioning, all in the midst of an unrelenting heat wave.
According to authorities, emergency services rescued 16 people: 12 adults and four minors, who were conscious when they were taken to hospitals in the city, 250 kilometers from the Mexican border.
The Mexican Foreign Minister, Marcelo Ebrard, informed through his Twitter account about the tragic event, where he highlighted that the Mexican Consul in San Antonio, Ruben Minutti, was already at the scene, obtaining details of what happened.
He noted that the injured were sent to four hospitals: University, Downtown Methodist, Downtown Baptiste and Santa Rosa West Overhills.
"The patients were very hot to the touch, they had suffered heat stroke, as there was no sign of water in the vehicle," Hood said of the migrants found.
He further explained that the survivors are expected to make a full recovery.
It should be noted that, so far, three people have been arrested, said William McManus, San Antonio police chief, who did not give further details about the role of those arrested in the new tragedy that adds to the many cases like this one, where victims of traffickers lose their lives in their attempt to reach the U.S. in search of a better fate.
Authorities reported that police responded to a call to emergency services at 5:55 p.m. Monday, where a person reported the presence of a body at Cassin and Quintana streets, near Lackland Air Force Base, 16 kilometers from downtown.
In the 911 call, the informant detailed that he had heard screams coming from inside the trailer of the truck that was parked near the railroad tracks.
A police force arrived on the scene to find a tragedy. At the site there was a body outside in the bed of the truck, and others were visible when the doors of the vehicle were opened.
After the discovery, 20 units with 65 firefighters and a dozen ambulances arrived at the site to offer support to the survivors who were too weak to make their way through the wreckage. The first one was rescued seven minutes after six o'clock. The last one, at 18:57 hours.
McManus detailed that the investigation of the case has been left in federal hands, actions to which Mexico will join, said Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard, who confirmed a meeting between Presidents Andrés Manuel López Obrador and Joseph Biden on July 12, where, undoubtedly, the migration issue will be discussed.
With information from El PaÃs and the Twitter account of Mexico's Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard.
You may be interested in: Inequity in Silicon Valley persists for people of color
