Tue 28 June 2022:
Authorities in San Antonio said that more than 40 migrants were discovered dead inside a big-rig truck’s trailer on Monday.
At least 46 individuals, including four children, were reported killed and hospitalized, according to San Antonio Fire Chief Charles Hood.
According to police, both males and females, many of them young adults, were among the victims.
“The patients we saw were hot to the touch. They were suffering from heat stroke, heat exhaustion. There were no signs of water in the vehicle,” he said.
“It was a refrigerated tractor-trailer, but there was no visible air conditioning unit on that rig.”
Police Chief William McManus said a city worker at the scene was alerted to the situation by a cry for help shortly before 6pm on Monday (23:00 GMT). Officers arrived to find a body on the ground outside the trailer and a partially opened gate to the trailer, he said.
The vehicle was found next to railway tracks in a remote area on the city’s southern outskirts, and McManus said three people were taken into custody over the incident.
Mexico’s Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard called the suffocation of the refugees and migrants a “tragedy in Texas” and said the local consulate was en route to the scene.
He said two Guatemalans were among the victims and that the trailer had fake European Union plates.
Tragedia en Texas. Asfixiados en la caja del trailer según se informa. Cónsul en ruta al punto. Condolencias a las víctimas y sus familias. Aún no conocemos nacionalidades. https://t.co/4d7hDErHwo
— Marcelo Ebrard C. (@m_ebrard) June 28, 2022
Monday’s disaster may be one of the deadliest incidents of human smuggling along the US-Mexico border in recent decades.
Ten individuals died in a truck that was parked outside a Walmart in San Antonio in 2017 after becoming trapped inside, while 19 people were discovered dead in a hot truck southeast of the city in 2003.
San Antonio, which is around 260 kilometers (160 miles) from the Mexican border, experienced a Monday high of 39.4 degrees Celsius (103 degrees Fahrenheit) with a high level of humidity.
The heat inside a trailer packed with people was likely significantly higher than the outside temperature.
A committee of the National Association of Medical Examiners has recommended that bodies with a temperature of 105 or greater at the time of collapse be certified as heat-related deaths.
San Antonio Mayor Ron Nirenberg called Monday’s incident a “horrific human tragedy”.
“They had families and were likely trying to find a better life,” he said. “We hope those responsible for putting people through such inhumane conditions are prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.”
Driver James Mathew Bradley Jr., 60, of Clearwater, Fla., pleaded guilty to conspiracy and transporting migrants, although his wife said he did not know people were in the trailer.
SOURCE: INDEPENDENT PRESS AND NEWS AGENCIES
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