53 people have tragically lost their lives in a deadly Mexico Truck crash on a pedestrian bridge on Thursday. The pedestrian bridge was located in the southern state of Chiapas, over a highway. Many of those injured were transferred to the hospital in critical condition.
Officials have not confirmed the nationalities but reports say the migrants from the Mexico Truck crash were from either Honduras or Guatemala, the latter of which borders the Chiapas state of Mexico. Alejandro Giammattei, president of Guatemala expressed his condolences in a tweet translated, “I deeply regret the tragedy in Chiapas state, and I express my solidarity for the victims’ families, to whom we will offer all the necessary consular assistance, including repatriation.”
The tragic crash of the Mexico Truck at the heels of an already intense immigrant crisis at the U.S. border. Devastating press pictures have been coming out from the accident scene with people strewn across the road.
More than 100 people were crammed inside the vehicle, and reports also claim the accident could be a result of the weight and speed of the truck, due to which it crashed and then toppled over. The state capital of Chiapas, Tuxtla Gutiérrez is considered a major transit point for undocumented immigrants. The immigrant crisis has only intensified over the years due to intense violence, corruption, lack of resources for the marginalized, and severe poverty in the Central American region.
CNN reports at least 650 people have died crossing the U.S.-Mexico border this year alone, more than any other year in the past. While the Trump presidency was particularly hard for immigrants in terms of bans, building the Mexican wall, and other restrictions, the current Biden administration has not been any better.
While the administration took down the wall project and it has specifically held policies, and come out in public telling people from the other side of the border “do not come.” Due to such policies and intense restrictions, immigrants are forced to take dangerous measures to cross unlivable situations in their own countries, such as hundreds of those migrating by foot, carrying their things, children on their backs, and other options such as the crammed Mexico Truck.
