MEXICO CITY — At least 49 migrants were killed after a trailer overturned in southern Mexico on Thursday, the latest tragedy to befall migrants seeking to reach the United States.
Authorities said more than 100 people were packed into the trailer as it sped along a highway near the city of Tuxtla Gutiérrez in Chiapas state before hitting a wall and flipping.
Along with the dead, 58 people were injured, said Ezequiel Gómez García, a spokesman for the state prosecutor’s office.
Videos of the aftermath showed dozens of bodies strewn across the highway and dazed survivors receiving medical treatment. In one video, a woman with a bandaged head sat in the middle of the road holding a boy who looked to be about 6 years old.
The accident occurred about 125 miles north of the border with Guatemala, a popular crossing for migrants, most of them from Central America but some from as far away as Asia and Africa.
The nationalities of the victims was not confirmed by emergency responders, but Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said on Twitter that the victims were Central American.
“I deeply regret the tragedy caused by the overturning of a trailer in Chiapas carrying Central American migrants,” he said. “It is very painful. I hug the families of the victims.”
Guatemalan President Alejandro Giammattei said on Twitter that the country would offer any consular assistance needed, including the repatriation of bodies.
In recent years, as Mexico has dramatically stepped up its immigration enforcement efforts under pressure from U.S. authorities, more and more migrants have turned to human smugglers. Packing migrants, including minors, into dangerously hot and overcrowded trailers has become a common tactic.
Two weeks ago, Mexican authorities said they had apprehended 600 people who were being smuggled in two trailers in Veracruz state. They included migrants from Honduras, El Salvador and Nicaragua and from countries as far away as India, Ghana and Bangladesh.
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(Cecilia Sanchez in The Times’ Mexico City bureau and special correspondent Juan de Dios in Tapachula, Mexico, contributed to this report.)
