Three migrants were killed and another 15 were injured when a car plowed into the group as they walked along a highway in southern Oaxaca on Thursday morning.
A Nicaraguan father and his 8-year-old daughter died at the scene while a 55-year-old man from Ecuador died of his injuries after being rushed to a hospital.
At least 15 other migrants — four from Honduras, three each from Nicaragua and Colombia and two each from Guatemala and Ecuador — were injured in the incident, according to the newspaper La Jornada. The nationality of the 15th victim was not released.
Ten of the victims are being treated at a hospital in Juchitán, three others are being treated at the General Hospital of Ciudad Ixtepec and two have been treated and released.
The incident occurred on federal Highway 190 near the town of Santiago Niltepec as the migrants walked west across the Isthmus of Tehuantepec.
State prosecutors are considering manslaughter charges for the driver of the vehicle, who was apprehended at the scene.
The day after the accident, the remaining migrants were in the city of La Ventosa, where members of Doctors without Borders attended to them.
Carlos Gómez, Guatemala’s consul in Arriaga in the neighboring state of Chiapas, visited his countrymen in the Ciudad Ixtepec hospital on Thursday. Afterward, he announced that he would lobby the Mexican government for humanitarian visas on behalf of the victims.
Luis Rey Villagrán García, director of the migrants rights group Centro de Dignificación de Derechos Humanos de Migrantes, took the lobbying effort a step further.
“The Mexican government has the obligation to protect migrants and travelers from extortion, kidnap and accidents,” he said, according to the newspaper Debate. “The best way to do that is to issue humanitarian visas.”
🗣️ “Venía como loco, levantó como a 16 personas”.
Claudia es hermana de uno de los migrantes que resultaron gravemente heridos tras ser arrollados en Oaxaca la madrugada de este jueves.
Hasta el momento se han confirmado 3 personas muertas.📹: @ramonbragana pic.twitter.com/Sstg0io6Js
— Telediario Puebla (@TelediarioPUE) August 29, 2024
A sister of one of the injured describes the attack on the group. The highways on which migrants travel have dangerously small shoulders that are often used as right lanes.
Earlier this month, authorities in Oaxaca city rescued 41 migrants who were being held against their will at a house in the state capital.
In response to Thursday’s accident, Irineo Mujica, director of the refugee and migrant rights group Pueblos Sin Frontera, said migrants in Mexico are extremely vulnerable due to the “criminal migration policies” Mexico has adopted because of pressure from the United States.
The Mexican government has made it more difficult for undocumented migrants to traverse the country on buses and trains. In the first five months of 2024, nearly 1.4 million undocumented foreigners were detected traveling in Mexico without entry authorization.
With reports from La Jornada, Proceso, El Universal and Debate
