Fifteen migrant (*38*) were freed from a detention center in Juarez, Mexico, as a deadly fire spread there on Monday, but the lads remained confined to their cells – at least 38 people have died, in line with local reports.
Discovery, Dallas Morning News reportsit comes after a video surfaced on Tuesday of Mexican immigration officials abandoning migrants as flames and smoke fill their holding cells.
The video shows the guards leaving without noticing the lads frantically attempting to escape from the locked cell.
The tragedy began on Monday night when some migrants set fire to piles of mattresses in their cell in protest – fearing they’d be deported from Mexico to their countries of origin.
“It isn’t fair what the Mexican immigrants did and with all of the hate in my heart I say they’re bad, bad,” said Abel Manuel Maldonado, whose brother was among the many dead.
Orlando Jose Maldonado was confirmed to have died in the fire when the official list was released Tuesday night.
“Many innocent people died there, individuals with children,” added Maldonado.
![The covered bodies of some of the 37 migrants who died in a fire at a detention center in Juarez, Mexico, March 28, 2023.](https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/NYPICHPDPICT000008887665-1.jpg?w=1024)
![Guards released 15 women from their cells at the center during the fire.](https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/NYPICHPDPICT000008891916.jpg?w=683)
In line with officials, 68 Central and South American migrants were held at the National Migration Institute in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico – situated lower than one mile from El Paso, Texas.
Typically, migrants were imprisoned for public nuisance related to minor incidents comparable to begging on Juarez street corners while they waited in hopes of an asylum appointment in El Paso so that they could legally enter the US.
The dead and injured are from Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Venezuela, Colombia and Ecuador, Mexico’s Attorney General’s Office said.
![Surveillance video of guards ignoring men in prison during fire.](https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/NYPICHPDPICT000008939883.jpg?w=1024)
![The fire broke out after a protest by some migrants at the center where they had laid out mattresses at the entrance.](https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/NYPICHPDPICT000008917209.jpg?w=1024)
![One migrant injured in hospital fire.](https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/NYPICHPDPICT000008926256.jpg?w=1024)
Twenty-eight others injured in the fire are in critical or serious condition.
Mexican authorities in Ciudad Juárez have gotten increasingly hostile towards asylum seekers, stopping them from sleeping outside and begging for money on the streets of the Mexican border town, in line with El Diario de Juarez.
“We do not take anything from anyone – we might moderately beg for money than steal,” said Maldonado. “They shouldn’t treat us like dogs.”
![Migrants light candles at a vigil in front of the facility after the fire.](https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/NYPICHPDPICT000008928255.jpg?w=1024)
![People leaving flowers outside the center in Juarez, March 28, 2023.](https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/NYPICHPDPICT000008901068.jpg?w=1024)
![Venezuelan migrant Abel Manuel Maldonado Perez mourns his brother Orlando who died in the fire.](https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/NYPICHPDPICT000008932495.jpg?w=1024)
The deadly hell broke out after tons of of migrants, mostly from Venezuela, tried to make their way across one in all the international bridges to El Paso earlier this month from Ciudad Juarez, spurred by false rumors that the US would allow them to enter the country.