Migrant deaths at Mexican detention centre investigated as suspected homicide

The deaths of at least 39 migrants in a fire at a Mexican detention centre are being investigated as suspected homicides, a prosecutor has said, accusing those in charge of doing nothing to evacuate the victims.

Authorities faced mounting scrutiny of their handling of the disaster after video surveillance footage appeared to show guards leaving as flames engulfed a cell with migrants locked inside.

An investigation was opened “for the crime of homicide and damage to property,” though other possible crimes will also be considered, Sara Irene Herrerias, a prosecutor specialising in human rights, said.

“None of the public servants or the private security personnel took any action to open the door for the migrants who were inside,” she told reporters.

Eight people have been identified as allegedly responsible for the failure, security minister Rosa Icela Rodriguez said at the same news conference. They are two federal agents and a state immigration official, as well as five members of a private security company.

Prosecutors have already requested several arrest warrants, Herrerias said.

Mexican president Andrés Manuel López Obrador earlier vowed there would be “no impunity” over the tragedy in Ciudad Juárez near the US border.

Those found to have been responsible for “causing this painful tragedy will be punished in conformity with the law,” he added.

Lopez Obrador said Tuesday that the migrants were believed to have started the fire themselves in a protest against deportations.

In a widely shared surveillance video, whose authenticity was confirmed by the government, three guards seem to hurry away leaving migrants in their cell as flames spread and smoke rapidly fills the building.

El Salvador, which said some of its citizens were seriously injured, demanded that the people in charge of the facility be punished since the video showed migrants “were left inside the cells without any chance of getting to safety.”

In Washington, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre described the video as “heartbreaking” and offered “condolences for the tragic loss of life.”

She said officials from the two countries had been in contact, and raised the possibility that some of the injured might be allowed to receive medical assistance in the United States.

Dozens of migrants spent the night outside the National Migration Institute (INM) facility in Ciudad Juárez waiting for information about their relatives and friends.

The dead and injured included people from Guatemala, Honduras, Venezuela, El Salvador, Colombia and Ecuador, Mexican authorities said.

US President Joe Biden’s administration has been hoping to stem the record tide of migrants and asylum seekers undertaking often dangerous journeys organised by human smugglers to get to the United States.

About 200,000 people try to cross the border from Mexico into the United States each month, most of them fleeing poverty and violence in Central and South America.

According to the International Organization for Migration, more than 7,600 migrants have died or disappeared in transit in the Americas since 2014.

Of those, about 4,400 people perished or went missing on the US-Mexican border crossing route, according to the UN agency.

Agence France-Presse contributed to this article