A disturbing video has captured the moment when guards at a Mexican detention center left at least 40 migrants to burn after setting fire to mattresses to protest their deportations.
In a clip that has been viewed about 1.4 million times, officers can be seen running from the locked prison cell as it fills with flames and plumes of smoke.
The video was shared by Mexican journalist Joaquín López-Dóriga who described the situation as “criminal.”
The fire broke out around 9:30 p.m. local time on Monday at a center in the Mexican northern border city of Ciudad Juarez.
It was apparently triggered by a protest by detainees against deportations, officials said Tuesday.
A guard in the detention center is seen running away from the locked cell as it fills with plumes of smoke and flames. Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said no one thought the protest would result in this ‘terrible tragedy’
Mexico’s National Migration Institute (INM) said 40 male migrants from Central and South America died in the blaze, while another 28 were hospitalized.
However, Guatemalan and Honduran authorities together counted 41 dead.
Guatemala’s National Immigration Institute said 28 of its citizens were killed in the fire, while Honduras’ deputy foreign minister said 13 were from his country.
It is not clear why the death toll figures differ.
On harrowing images released on Tuesday, dozens of body bags can be seen side by side.
Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said authorities believed the fire had broken out in the town opposite El Paso, Texas, after some migrants set fire to mattresses in protest after discovering they were about to be deported.
He did not give more details about how many died in the incident.
“They didn’t think this would cause this terrible tragedy,” Lopez Obrador told a news conference, noting that most of the migrants at the facility were from Central America and Venezuela.
The fire, one of the deadliest to hit the country in years, came as the United States and Mexico battle to cope with a record number of border crossings on their shared border.
At least 40 male migrants have died in the blaze, Mexican authorities confirmed. Harrowing images showed the body bags of the deceased all lined up next to each other
Viangly Infante, a Venezuelan migrant, responds to an ambulance outside for her injured husband Eduard Caraballo as Mexican authorities and firefighters remove injured migrants
A witness who was on the scene overnight saw bodies lying on the ground in body bags behind a yellow security cordon, surrounded by emergency services. The fire was extinguished.
It’s not immediately clear how the blaze was managed, whether there were emergency exits or what protocols officials used to deal with protests.
Two migrants told Reuters authorities rounded up migrants from the streets of Ciudad Juarez on Monday and detained them in downtown.
Alejandra Corona, a Jesuit Refugee Service (JRS) representative who visits the facility once a week to monitor conditions, said it has been split into two areas, one for men and one for women, each closed off with a metal fence and under the supervision of a security guard.
The space is designed to hold about 100 people, she added.
“They put them in cells and don’t leave until they’re transferred,” said Corona, adding that migrants typically spend two days there.
Paramedics carry an injured migrant after a fire that killed dozens of migrants
Forensic workers lift the bodies of migrants, mostly from Venezuela, who died in a fire at the National Migration Institute
Medics provide aid to a migrant who survived the horrific fire – which was set by migrants protesting fears of deportation
Activists have often expressed concern about poor conditions and overcrowding in detention centers as migration increases.
“Last night’s events are a horrific example of why organizations have been working to limit or eliminate detention in Mexico,” said Gretchen Kuhner, director of the Mexico-based Institute for Women in Migration, which supports migrant rights.
UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said in a statement that the secretary-general called for a “thorough investigation” into the tragic event.
Mexico’s INM did not respond to a request for comment on when the Ciudad Juarez site opened, or how many migration centers are currently in operation.
According to a report by the Mexican Human Rights Commission (CNDH), there were 53 INM detention centers operating across Mexico in 2019, with a total official capacity of about 3,000.
Viangly Infante, a Venezuelan national, was waiting outside the center when the fire broke out.
Firefighters and Mexican soldiers stand by as they rescue migrants from an immigration station in Ciudad Juarez
The bodies of dead migrants are covered with blankets in the parking lot
It was one of the deadliest incidents ever at an immigration blockade in the country
“I had been here since 1pm waiting for my children’s father, and when it got to 10pm, smoke started coming out everywhere,” the 31-year-old Venezuelan national told Reuters.
Her husband, 27-year-old Eduard Caraballo, was detained by Mexican migration authorities on Monday and placed in a holding cell at the facility.
He managed to survive by submerging himself in water and pressing against a door as the fire flared up, Infante said.
“His chest really hurt, he was struggling to breathe because of all the smoke, but he wasn’t burned,” Infante said of her husband, who is now in hospital.
The couple and their three children left Venezuela last October in search of better economic opportunities and a good education for their children, and to escape rampant crime.
By the end of December, they had reached the US border and crossed into Eagle Pass, Texas, where they surrendered themselves to US migration authorities. But they were immediately sent back to Mexico, where they then took a bus to Ciudad Juarez.
In recent weeks, there has been a buildup of migrants in Mexican border towns as authorities try to process asylum applications using a new app from the US government known as CBP One.
Many migrants believe the process is taking too long and earlier this month clashes erupted between US security forces and hundreds of mostly Venezuelan migrants at the border after frustration flared over securing asylum agreements.
The Mexican Immigration Detention Center is located in Juarez, across from El Paso, Texas
Under Mexico’s migration law, migrants can only be detained for 15 days under normal circumstances, though the Supreme Court ruled in March that such lengths are unconstitutional and that migrants cannot be held for more than 36 hours.
In January, the Biden administration said it would expand Trump-era restrictions to quickly deport Cuban, Nicaraguan and Haitian migrants caught crossing the US-Mexico border in an effort to contain border flows.
That came after a decision in October to expand evictions, under a controversial policy known as Title 42, to Venezuelans.
At the same time, the United States said it would allow up to 30,000 people from those countries to enter the country by air each month.
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