Mexico City, Mar 30 (EFE).- Five people have so far been detained in Mexico in connection with the death of 39 migrants as a result of a fire at an immigration stay on the Ciudad Juárez border, Mexican authorities said Thursday.
“The Attorney General of the Republic had requested four arrest warrants (detention). But today at dawn the hearing was completed and six arrest warrants were granted,” Sara Irene Herrerías, head of the specialized human rights prosecutor’s office of the Republic’s Attorney General’s Office (FGR), explained at a press conference.
He explained that there are three officials from the National Institute of Migration (INM), two private security police officers and the person who started the fire. At the moment, he shared, five of the arrest warrants have been fulfilled, although he did not specify who is the person who has not yet been brought to justice.
On the other hand, Herrerías explained that the FGR requested documentation proving the operation of these immigration stations to know what their obligations are “and what were their punishable actions or omissions.”
And he specified that these facilities, called provisional stays, are created to “provisionally” accommodate people who do not prove their regular stay in the country and until they are taken to another type of INM facility.
Inside the station were several private security employees of the company Grupo de Seguridad Privada Camsa SA de CV, whose partners are David Vicente Salazar Gasca and George Mcphail Trouyet.
The Secretary of Public Security and Citizen Protection, Rosa Icela Rodríguez, announced that a first irregularity regarding the company could be known: only four security agents with 10 uniforms had been reported. “However, the contract with the INM was for 503 elements in facilities located in 23 states of the country,” shared the secretary.
For this reason, the investigation will continue, which, Rodríguez assured, will determine the responsibilities of the company but also of the INM.
Regarding the origin of the 39 deceased migrants, Rodríguez said that six are Hondurans, seven Salvadorans, 18 Guatemalans, one Colombian and seven Venezuelans.
DAMAGE REPAIR
The head of the SSPC said that by instruction of the President of Mexico, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, the process will begin to achieve reparation for the damage to the relatives of the victims.
“We know that the pain caused by a loss of life can never be overcome, but it is our obligation to protect the families of the victims,” he added.
Finally, both officials assured that they cannot give further details about the investigation since the investigations have to continue and the hearings are taking place.
The Mexican president promised this morning that there will be no impunity after the fire that killed the migrants, but evaded answering whether the head of the National Institute of Migration (INM), Francisco Garduño Yáñez, will resign, and whether the private security company in charge of the immigration station belongs to a Nicaraguan consul.
“There will be no impunity, those responsible will be punished, and I spoke with the prosecutor (general, Alejandro Gertz) to ask him not to have any kind of consideration other than to do justice. That they act with professionalism, absolute freedom”, he declared this Thursday at his daily press conference.
The scrutiny of the Government of Mexico has grown since Monday’s fire at an INM migration station in Ciudad Juárez, on the border with the United States, where there were almost 70 migrants from Guatemala, El Salvador, Colombia, Ecuador and Venezuela held for their deportation.
Leaked security videos show impassive agents while detained migrants asked them to open the door, and compatriots of the victims have denounced that the tragedy “could have been avoided.”
The Mexican president avoided answering this morning if the company Servicios Especializados de Investigación y Custody (Seicsa) was in charge of the private security of the immigration center and is owned by Elías Gerardo Valdés, Nicaraguan consul in Nuevo León and Coahuila, who has received contracts government billionaires, as reported by the LatinUs media.
Similarly, he evaded demanding the resignation of Garduño Yáñez, head of the INM, despite the claims of the opposition and human rights defenders.
The Secretary of Security and Citizen Protection (SSPC) announced Wednesday that it has identified eight alleged perpetrators of the fire, including two federal agents, a state immigration agent and five agents from the private security company.
