Scores of CentAm Migrants Rescued from Abandoned Truck in Veracruz Agence France-Presse
go to original July 30, 2017

Police earlier rescued eight people believed to be illegal immigrants being smuggled into the US inside a sweltering 18-wheeler trailer earlier this month. (Eric Gay/AP)

Scores of would-be migrants being smuggled from Central America to the United States were rescued Saturday from an abandoned truck, officials in the Mexican state of Veracruz said.

Authorities said 178 people were found in the tractor-trailer truck in the Mexican town of Tantima.

Their rescue comes less than a week after the horrific suffocation deaths of 10 migrants who were trapped in an 18 wheel truck and discovered last Sunday in a Walmart parking lot in San Antonio, Texas.

Authorities said as many as 200 migrants may have been crammed into the trailer found in Texas, many of whom had to be hospitalized. Some survivors fled the parking lot in waiting cars, according to witness accounts.

Officials said occupants of the truck on Saturday narrowly averted tragedy realized at some point that they had been abandoned by the traffickers, and that a few managed to escape the vehicle and enlist the aid of local inhabitants of the town who gave them food and water.

The Central Americans were then transported by police to a migration center, where they were given medical assistance before authorities began the process of returning them to their countries of origin.

A Mexican military source told AFP that most of the Central Americans were adults, although there were also a handful of minors found in the vehicle.

Read the rest at AhramOnline

Related: What Are Migrants Fleeing from When They Cross the Mexico-US Border? (CNN)

Related: Poverty, Jobs and Debt Drive Migrants to Suffocating Texas Truck (Reuters)

Related: People Coming from All Over Texas and Mexico to Honor Smuggling Victims (KENS5)

Related: By the Numbers: Migrant Deaths and Human Trafficking in the US (CNN)

Related: Man Who Died in Trailer Tragedy Struggled to Make a Living in Mexico (San Antonio Express-News)

Related: U.S., Mexican Governments Share Blame in Migrant Drownings in the Rio Grande (El Paso Times)

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