Mexico: At Least 39 Dead After Fire Breaks Out At Migrant Facility In Ciudad Juarez

A fire broke out at a migrant facility in the Mexican border city of Ciudad Juarez on Tuesday, killing at least 39 people. 68 adult men from Central and South America were housed in the facility.

Firefighters, ambulanse crews and Mexican soldiers try to rescue migrants from an immigration station in Ciudad Juarez

Source : AFP

At least 39 migrants died after a fire broke out at a migrant facility in the Mexican border city of Ciudad Juarez on Tuesday, news agency Reuters reported quoting the government's National Migration Institute (INM). 

The INM said in a statement that the facility was home to 68 adult men from Central and South America.

According to the institute, twenty-nine migrants were injured in the fire and were taken to four hospitals in the area.

Reuters reported citing an on-site witness, bodies were lined up in bags and the fire, the origins of which are being investigated, had been extinguished.

According to the report, many of the migrants at the facility were Venezuelan.

The fire, one of the deadliest in recent years, occurred as the United States and Mexico struggle to deal with record levels of border crossings at their shared border.

“It is with deep sadness and grief that we learned of the fire that occurred inside the INM in Ciudad Juárez,” Andrea Chavez, Ciudad Juarez’s federal deputy, tweeted on Tuesday.

Con profunda tristeza y aflicción, nos enteramos del incendio ocurrido al interior del INM de Ciudad Juárez.

Esperaremos la información oficial y, desde este momento, hacemos llegar nuestras condolencias a las familias de las personas migrantes.

FGR inició la investigación.

— Andrea Chávez (@AndreaChavezTre) March 28, 2023

Recent weeks have witnessed a build-up of migrants in Mexican border cities as officials seek to process asylum requests using a new US government app known as CBP One.

Many migrants feel the process is taking too long and earlier this month hundreds of largely Venezuelan migrants got into a confrontation with US officials at the border as their impatience welled up about gaining asylum appointments.

In an effort to control border flows, the Biden administration said in January that it will strengthen Trump-era restrictions to rapidly deport Cuban, Nicaraguan, and Haitian migrants found illegally crossing the US-Mexico border.

At the same time, the US announced that up to 30,000 people from those three countries, plus Venezuela, would be allowed to enter the country by air each month.