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You can find the current article at its original source at https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/mar/28/deadly-fire-migrant-facility-mexico-ciudad-juarez
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At least 39 dead after fire at migrant facility in Mexico’s Ciudad Juárez | At least 39 dead after fire at migrant facility in Mexico’s Ciudad Juárez |
(37 minutes later) | |
Ambulances, firefighters and vans from morgue attend facility in city on US border | Ambulances, firefighters and vans from morgue attend facility in city on US border |
At least 39 people have died and dozens been injured after a fire ripped through an immigration detention centre in Ciudad Juárez, a Mexican city on the US border. | |
Images of the aftermath showed dozens of lifeless bodies splayed out on the ground, some covered by silver thermal blankets. Television footage showed emergency workers attending to stunned survivors, who sat on white sheets gasping for breath. | |
Reports in the Mexican press suggested a large number of the victims were Venezuelan migrants, millions of whom have abandoned their economically devastated country in recent years in search of a better life. | |
Colombia’s consul in Mexico, Andrés Camilo Hernández Ramírez, said he was trying to verify whether citizens of his country had been affected by the fire, and would travel to the region if they had. | |
The newspaper El Universal said immigration officials had spent the hours before the fire, on Monday afternoon, rounding up Venezuelan migrants who had been begging for money on the street of Ciudad Juárez, which is just over the US border from El Paso, Texas. Some of those migrants are believed to have been transported to the immigration centre where the fire broke out. | |
The toll of dead and injured was given by an official with Mexico’s national immigration institute, which runs the facility. No explanation has been given for the cause of the fire. The INM said there were 68 adult men from Central and South America at the facility. | |
Ciudad Juárez is a popular crossing point for migrants entering the US. Its shelters a host migrants waiting for opportunities to cross or who have requested asylum in the US. | |
Mexico’s attorney general’s office has launched an inquiry and has investigators at the scene, according to media reports. | Mexico’s attorney general’s office has launched an inquiry and has investigators at the scene, according to media reports. |
More details soon … | More details soon … |