At least 46 people, possibly immigrants, have been found dead in an abandoned truck outside San Antonio, Texas. According to local media, 16 people, including 4 children, were hospitalized with health problems due to the heat.
It is not yet known exactly how the victims died. Three people were detained as part of the investigation into the incident carried out by federal agents.
Images posted on social media show vehicles and emergency crews around a large truck. According to officials, the truck carrying the people had no air conditioning and no drinking water. The weather in San Antonio is quite hot during the summer (northern hemisphere) with temperatures reaching 39.4ºC this Monday (27/6).
According to KSAT TV, the vehicle was discovered near train tracks on San Antonio’s Southwest Side. The city is approximately 250 km from the US-Mexico border.
“They had families… and they were probably looking for a better life,” said San Antonio Mayor Ron Nirenberg. “It’s just a terrible human tragedy.”
Mexican Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard said two people from Guatemala were hospitalized, but the nationalities of the victims were still unknown.
Last year, there were a record number of illegal immigrants detained from Mexico in the US, many of whom had passed through extremely risky routes. It is common to use trucks to transport illegal immigrants. In 2017, 10 immigrants were found dead in a truck outside a Walmart store.
“Human traffickers are callous individuals who have no respect for vulnerable people who exploit and put them at risk for profit,” said US Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Majorkas. said.
Texas Republican Governor Greg Abbott blamed US President Joe Biden for the deaths and described the deaths as “the result of lethal open border policies”.
Democratic candidate Beto O’Rourke, who ran against Abbott, called for urgent action to “dismantle human trafficking networks and replace them with widened avenues for legal immigration.”
Image: REUTERS
Immigration is a controversial political issue in the United States. In May, 239,000 undocumented immigrants were detained who entered the country from Mexico, most of whom traveled through extremely unsafe routes.
US law enforcement is close to surpassing the record 1.73 million arrests made at the border in 2021.
Many of the undocumented immigrants fleeing poverty and violence in Central America pay large sums to traffickers to eventually cross the US border.
In recent years, there have been many similar instances of immigrants who have died on their journey, but nothing has been more tragic than this Monday.
– This text was originally published at https://www.bbc.com/portuguese/internacional-61962211.
source: Noticias
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