Migrants fearing deportation set fire to mattresses during a protest at a refugee center in northern Mexico, killing a minimum of 40 people, Mexico’s president said on Tuesday.
A deadly fire broke out on the National Migration Institute in Ciudad Juárez on Monday night, where 68 men from Central and South America are being held, the agency said.
The ability is situated across from El Paso, Texas, and Ciudad Juárez is a significant border crossing point for migrants.
Some migrants set fire to piles of mattresses at the doorway to the middle after learning they’d be sent back to their countries of origin, Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador confirmed on Tuesday morning.
“It had to do with the protest they began,” he explained.
![The bodies of the dead lay in front of the migrant center, wrapped in a shiny foil-like wrapping.](https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/NYPICHPDPICT000008887665.jpg?w=1024)
“We assume that they discovered that they were going to be deported, mobilized and, as an indication of protest, set mattresses under the door of the shelter and set them on fire, they usually couldn’t imagine that it might cause such a terrible disgrace. “
Authorities said 29 people were injured in a “delicate-serious” condition.
The dead and injured are from Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Venezuela, Colombia and Ecuador, Mexico’s Attorney General’s Office said. Guatemalans are the most important contingent.
Mexican authorities in Ciudad Juárez have gotten increasingly hostile towards asylum seekers who fill local shelters, reports El Diario de Juarez.
Residents reported the migrants who often stay on the streets as a nuisance, the newspaper reported.
![Those who survived Monday's fire had to deal with heartache and possible deportation to their country of origin.](https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/NYPICHPDPICT000008882040.jpg?w=1024)
![The fire broke out around 9:30 p.m. Monday evening after migrants set fire to mattresses, Mexican authorities said.](https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/NYPICHPDPICT000008887661.jpg?w=1024)
On Tuesday, migrants from Venezuela gathered at the ability’s door, demanding details about relatives.
Katiuska Márquez asked about her half-brother, Orlando Maldonado, who was traveling along with her.
“We wish to know if he’s alive or dead,” said Márquez, who had two children along with her, ages 2 and 4.
She wondered how all of the guards inside escaped alive and only the migrants died.
“How could they not get them out?”
![The authorities in the Mexican border town of Juarez have become increasingly hostile to migrants, some of whom have been out of work for months and hanging around in public places.](https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/NYPICHPDPICT000008881592.jpg?w=1024)
Márquez and Maldonado, who were waiting in Juarez to meet U.S. authorities to apply for asylum, were detained on Monday together with their children and about 20 others.
“Immigration grabbed me by my jacket and put me in a truck with my brother and other families,” she said.
Three hours later, the ladies and youngsters were released.
The deadly hell comes after lots of of migrants, mostly from Venezuela, tried to make their way across one of the international bridges to El Paso earlier this month from Ciudad Juarez, spurred by rumors that the US would allow them to enter the country.
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