Five People Arrested Over Mexican Detention Centre Fire

A total of six warrants were issued against three immigration officials, two private security guards and a migrant accused of starting the fire.

Candles are lit during a vigil outside Mexican immigration facilities where at least 38 migrants died in a fire, in Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua state.

Five people have been arrested for alleged roles in the deaths of 39 people at a Mexican migrant detention centre in Ciudad Juarez this week after a fire broke out, the authorities said on Thursday.

This announcement came a day after the attorney general’s office said a homicide investigation into the incident further accused the people in-charge of the facility of doing nothing to evacuate the migrants. The hard scrutiny came after video surveillance footage appeared to show guards leaving as flames engulfed a cell with migrants locked inside.

Five arrest warrants have already been executed, Sara Irene Herrerias, a prosecutor specialising in human rights, was reported by AFP as saying in a news conference. 

A total of six warrants were issued against three immigration officials, two private security guards and a migrant accused of starting the fire, she said, without specifying which of them were arrested.

In the news conference Security Minister Rosa Icela Rodriguez announced that the deceased were 18 Guatemalans, seven Salvadorans, seven Venezuelans, six Hondurans and one Colombian. 

The injured were 10 Guatemalans, eight Hondurans, five Salvadorans and five Venezuelans, she said. So far only one has been discharged. 

On Wednesday, Rodriguez said while mentioning the footage, that a total of eight people had been identified as allegedly responsible for the failure. 

The authenticity of the video was confirmed by the government after three guards were seen hurrying away leaving migrants in their cells as flames spread and smoke rapidly filled the building.

As per AFP, the fire was started by at least one of the migrants in protest of deportations.

Meanwhile, the Mexican president, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has vowed there would be "no impunity" over the tragedy that began on Monday. 

Those found to have been responsible for “causing this painful tragedy will be punished in conformity with the law”, he added.

Each month around 200,000 people try to cross the border from Mexico to the United States, most fleeing from poverty, violence, and political repression in Central and South America.