Relatives of the six Honduran migrants who died in a migration center in a fire in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, demanded that justice be done and that they help them repatriate the bodies of their loved ones as soon as possible.
“We demand justice, that their deaths do not go unpunished, as well as prompt repatriation of the bodies,” Flora Santos, sister of Honduran Alis Dagoberto Flores, who died on Monday in a fire at a National Institute of Transportation station, told local media. Migration (INM).
Flora Santos indicated that her 42-year-old brother had been in the immigration station for five days when the fire occurred that cost the lives of 39 people of various nationalities.
According to the Mexican authorities, the fire inside an immigration station in Ciudad Juárez originated because some migrants set fire to some mats as a protest measure.
On Wednesday, the Government of Mexico reported that after the first investigations by the Attorney General of the Republic (FGR) 8 alleged perpetrators of the fire have been identified.
Cindy Umaña, sister of Edin Josué Umaña, 26, asked the president of Honduras, Xiomara Castro, to help them repatriate her brother’s body as soon as possible.
“We want President Xiomara Castro to show what she promised to help the people, right now we need those words to come true, she is the only one who can help us,” Umaña told local media.
Umaña asked that an exhaustive investigation be carried out into this fire and support to travel to Mexico to identify the body of his brother and later repatriate him to the department of Santa Bárbara, in western Honduras.
For her part, Melissa Callejas, aunt of Honduran José Ángel Ceballos, said that the family is “destroyed” by the death of their relative, as they maintained “hope” that he had survived the fire.
“They gave us the bad news that his death has already been confirmed and it has impacted us a lot, we had the faith that he was alive, that he had escaped, but until we see him here we will be safe,” Callejas said with a broken voice. .
He called for “justice” so that fires like the one in which his 21-year-old nephew died “are not repeated,” and regretted that many young people decide to migrate to the United States in search of the “American dream” due to the lack of opportunities in Honduras.
According to international human rights organizations, 2022 was the most tragic year for migrants in Mexico, as some 900 died trying to cross into the United States.
The region is experiencing a record migratory flow, with 2.76 million undocumented immigrants detained at the United States border with Mexico in fiscal year 2022.
Keep reading:
- Amnesty International: deadly fire in Ciudad Juárez is the result of inhumane policies
- Mexican senator affirms that the fire that occurred in Ciudad Juarez is a state crime
- Hundreds of migrants escape from a migration center in southeastern Mexico after being held for 20 days