5 held over migrant fire deaths

Five people have been arrested over a fire at a Mexican immigration detention centre near the US border that left 39 migrants dead and 27 injured, authorities said on Thursday.

The announcement came a day after the attorney-general’s office announced a homicide investigation into the disaster, accusing the people in charge of the facility of doing nothing to evacuate the migrants.

Five arrest warrants have already been executed, Sara Irene Herrerias, a prosecutor specialising in human rights, told a news conference.

They “have already been placed at the disposal of the judge”, she added.

A total of six warrants were issued against three immigration officials, two private security guards and a migrant accused of starting the fire, she said, without specifying which of them were arrested.

The deceased were 18 Guatemalans, seven Salvadorans, seven Venezuelans, six Hondurans and one Colombian, Security Minister Rosa Icela Rodriguez said at the same news conference.

The injured were 10 Guatemalans, eight Hondurans, five Salvadorans and five Venezuelans, she said. Of them, only one has so far been discharged.

Authorities faced questions about their handling of the disaster after video surveillance footage appeared to show guards leaving as flames engulfed a cell with migrants locked inside.

A total of eight people had been identified as allegedly responsible for the failure, Ms Rodriguez said on Wednesday.

President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has vowed there would be “no impunity” over the tragedy that began late on Monday in Ciudad Juarez, across the border from El Paso, Texas.

According to the government, at least one migrant is believed to have started the fire in a protest against deportations.

In the video, whose authenticity was confirmed by the government, three guards seem to hurry away leaving migrants in their cell as flames spread and smoke rapidly fills the building.

El Salvador, which said some of its citizens were seriously injured, demanded the people running the facility be punished since the video showed migrants “were left inside the cells without any chance of getting to safety”.

Officials are evaluating assistance for the families of the victims, while starting the process of revoking the contract and imposing a fine on the company in charge of the security at the compound, Ms Rodriguez said.

US President Joe Biden’s administration has been hoping to stem the record tide of migrants and asylum seekers undertaking often dangerous journeys organised by smugglers to get to the United States.

About 200,000 people try to cross the border from Mexico into the United States each month, most of them fleeing poverty, violence and political repression in Central and South America.

On Wednesday about 1,000 migrants, mostly from Venezuela, illegally crossed the border from Ciudad Juarez to El Paso before surrendering to border agents, US authorities said.

The influx was apparently triggered by rumours — quickly denied by US officials — that migrants were being allowed entry on humanitarian grounds.