Mexico migrant fire deaths investigated as 'suspected homicides'

INA-  sources 

The prosecutor for human rights of Mexico, Sara Irene Herrerías Guerra, declared on Wednesday, March 29, an investigation was opened for the crime of homicide and damage to property, at a Mexican migrant detention center across the border from El Paso, Texas, where a fire killed 39 detained men.
Mexican authorities added that eight employees are being investigated, seeking at least four arrest warrants – including one for a migrant who was part of what they described as "a small group that started the fire." The authorities appeared to place blame for the deaths in the fire that happened late Monday largely on private, subcontracted security guards at the detention center in Ciudad Juárez. The video showed guards hurrying away from the smoky fire apparently without trying to free detainees.
Five of those under investigation for possible misconduct are private security guards, two are federal immigration agents and one is a Chihuahua state officer, federal public safety secretary Rosa Icela Rodríguez declared.

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Anger and frustration

The investigation has centered on the fact that guards appeared to make no effort to release the men – almost all from Guatemala, Honduras, Venezuela and El Salvador – before smoke filled the room in a matter of seconds. The deaths caused frustration and may have played a role in a mass march late Wednesday afternoon by hundreds of migrants, who began walking toward a US border crossing in the belief that American authorities would let them through.

Adding to the anger over the deaths was the pent-up frustration of migrants who have spent weeks trying to make appointments on a US cellphone app to file asylum claims. As the rumor spread that they might be let into the US, several hundred of the migrants crossed the shallow Rio Grande from Mexico toward the state of Texas and approached a gate in the border fence that separates El Paso and Ciudad Juárez.

International call for 'thorough investigation'

Smoke began billowing out of the migrant detention center late Monday after a group of detained migrants set fire to foam mattresses, to protest what they thought were plans to move or deport them, as shown on leaked surveillance video. In the video – which was later confirmed by the government – two people dressed as guards rush into the camera frame, by the metal gate of the cell. But the guards don't appear to make any effort to open its doors and instead, hurry away as billowing clouds of smoke fill the structure within seconds. It was unclear if the two guards actually had the keys, but authorities suggested Wednesday that they should have gotten it or broken the lock – a highly difficult task, given the quick spread of smoke.

Ciudad Juárez mayor Cruz Pérez Cuellar told the Associated Press on Wednesday his office had not received any report of rights abuses of migrants in detention facilities. He insisted that his government shared no responsibility for what happened. "It's a terrible tragedy that pains all of us. We are grieving," he said, adding that authorities should "come down with the full weight of the law on those responsible – the people that for instance, didn’t open the doors for the migrants." US authorities have offered to help treat some of the nearly 30 people who are hospitalized in critical or serious condition, most apparently from smoke inhalation. United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called for a "thorough investigation" into the fire.

Source: Le Monde