2 migrants die in truck crash in southern Mexico


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MEXICO CITY (AP) — Two Central American migrants died and a dozen more were injured when a truck carrying 41 migrants overturned in southern Mexico, immigration authorities said Monday.

The accident occurred near San Francisco Ixhuatan in Oaxaca state Sunday night, according to a statement from the National Institute for Migration. Four of the injured were hospitalized in critical condition, while the others were treated and released.

The migrants from Guatemala and Honduras were packed into a three-ton truck. Authorities said they paid about $380 each to enter Mexico from the Guatemalan border and travel to the U.S. border. There, they were to pay $2,950 more for help entering the United States.

On June 27, nine migrants died in a similar accident in the southern state of Tabasco when a driver lost control of a truck and it crashed into a stream. There were as many as 20 people aboard.

Human rights organizations have criticized the Mexican government for stepping up its pursuit of Central American migrants since mid-2014 under pressure from the U.S. This year, Central American migrants who surged across the U.S.-Mexico border last year are being stopped in Mexico under its so-called southern border plan.

Mexican authorities have kept migrants off northbound freight trains, forcing them instead to walk at night among gangs looking to exploit them, or to board trucks like the ones that crashed. The migrants have continued coming, though, as they flee poverty and gang violence in their countries.

"In recent months we have noted an increase in the traffic of people due to the southern border plan," said Ruben Figueroa of the Mesoamerican Migrant Movement, a migrant advocacy organization. He complained of "strong persecution by federal authorities, which has resulted in accidents where migrants have died and been injured in clashes between human smugglers and police."

Between October and April, Mexico detained 92,889 Central American migrants. During the same period, the U.S. detained 70,226 non-Mexican migrants, mostly from Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador. In the same period a year earlier, the U.S. detained 159,103 non-Mexican migrants, which was more than triple the number detained by Mexico.

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