Freight truck crash in southern Mexico, 10 migrants killed, 17 injured

Tapachula, The Gulf Observer: At least 10 Cuban migrants died and 17 others were seriously injured after a freight truck they were riding is crashed on a highway in southern Mexico near the border with Guatemala.

The National Immigration Institute said all of the dead Cuban migrants were women, and one of them was under 18.

The Institute said the driver of the vehicle had apparently been speeding and lost control of the truck, which was carrying 27 migrants at the time. The driver fled the scene.

The Chiapas state civil defense office said the crash happened Sunday on a highway near the town of Pijijiapan.

Photos showed a truck with an open cargo box tipped on its side, and the victims on the side of the highway. An employee of the state prosecutor’s office said the migrants had been hitching rides on passing vehicles.

Mexican authorities generally prohibit migrants without proper documents from riding buses, so those without the money to hire smugglers often walk along the side of highways, hitching rides aboard passing trucks.

It was the latest in a series of migrants deaths in Mexico amid a surge in migrants traveling toward the U.S. border.

A migrant from Ecuador died and 10 others from Colombia and Guatemala were injured in an crash Saturday that occurred while they were being taken for processing in a van operated by Mexico’s immigration agency.