Six migrants die after Mexican soldiers fire on pick-up truck

MEXICO CITY: Six migrants died after Mexican soldiers fired on a group of 33 migrants traveling in a pick-up truck that had tried to evade a military patrol, the defence ministry said on Thursday, underlining tensions on Mexico’s southern border as it faces US pressure to contain migration.

Another 10 migrants were injured in the ncident on Tuesday evening, the ministry said in a statement. The group included people of Egyptian, Nepalese, Cuban, Indian and Pakistani nationality, though the statement did not specify the nationalities of the deceased.

The ministry said the incident took place just before 9 p.m. local time on Tuesday while the patrol traveled on a highway near the town of Huixtla, some 40-kms from Tapachula, by the Guatemalan border.

The pick-up truck was followed by two vehicles similar to those used by criminal groups in the area, it said, and soldiers reported hearing explosions after which two officers opened fire. The deaths shine a renewed spotlight on Mexico’s policy towards migrants as well as the growing role of the military in the country’s security.

“These events are neither accidental nor isolated, they are a consequence of the restrictive immigration policies that the Mexican state continues to implement,” the Collective for the Monitoring of the Southern Border, a grouping of advocacy and civil society organizations, said in a statement.