Migrants set fire in midnight camp raid in northern Mexico

CHIHUAHUA, Mexico: Migrants trying to avoid arrest set fire to blankets and mattresses at a camp in the northern Mexican city of Chihuahua during a raid by government forces to clear the site in the early hours of Sunday.

The enforcement action near the US border come just ahead of the inauguration on Monday of US President-elect Donald Trump, who has accused Mexico’s government of not doing enough to curb migration to the US and threatened sweeping tariffs.

About 250 Mexican officials, including National Guard military police in anti-riot gear, surrounded the encampment at around midnight, according to a Reuters witness.

Migrants began setting fire to mattresses and blankets in protest, the witness said, and tried to slip out of the site carrying babies and belongings. No deaths or injuries were reported in the blaze, which was extinguished in under an hour.

Mexico’s migration agency did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

A migration official, who was not authorized to speak to reporters, told Reuters that the goal of the operation was to bring the migrants to Mexico’s southern border, where they would be told to return to their home countries.

It was not clear how many people were detained.

Many among the 150 migrants were Venezuelan families who had stopped at the camp in Chihuahua city, about 360-kms from the border city of Ciudad Juarez across from El Paso, Texas, as they headed north to the US.