A truck that illegally transported about 82 Central American migrants, overturned on a highway in the state of Veracruz, east of Mexico, leaving a dead person and 81 injured, including several minors. According to local media reports, the accident occurred around 8:00 a.m. in the municipality of San Andrés Tuxtla, a jungle area in the southern state of Veracruz.
Preliminary versions indicate that the vehicle, which was moving migrants from the south of the North American country to the northern border, with the United States, lost control in a curve and left the road.
The fatality victim was identified as Nelias Ramírez Mateos, while the rest of the migrants, from Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador, suffered minor blows and fractures. Some were treated at the scene by paramedics, while the other injured were taken to local hospitals, where they received care at the San Andrés Tuxtla hospital and the hospital in Santiago Tuxtla.
The site of the accident was attended by elements of the Federal Police, National Guard, State Civil Protection and municipal authorities of San Andrés Tuxtla, Catemaco and Santiago Tuxtla, as well as the Fire Department of San Andrés Tuxtla and Red Cross.
Alarming figures
According to a report presented by the International Organization for Migration (IOM), 2019 was the year with the most dead migrants in the Americas. At least 810 people died while crossing deserts, rivers and remote areas on different migration routes of the Americas.
In 2019, the victims totaled 497. Most of those deaths have occurred in the Rio Grande, which separates Texas, in the United States, from the Mexican states of Tamaulipas, Nuevo León and Coahuila, where 109 people died last year, 26 % more than in 2018. Veracruz, on the entire east coast of Mexico, connects the south of the country with these northern states.