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Death toll now 50 in Texas truck tragedy

SAN ANTONIO •Thenumber of migrants dead in a suspected smuggling operation rose to 50 on Tuesday, the Mexican consulate reported, a day after dozens of bodies were found in the back of a sweltering tractor-trailer in San Antonio, Texas.

More than a dozen people — their bodies hot to the touch — were taken to hospitals, including four children.

A city worker heard a cry for help from the truck parked on a San Antonio back road Monday afternoon and discovered the gruesome scene inside the trailer, Police Chief William McManus said. Hours later, body bags lay spread on the ground.

Forty-six people were found dead at the scene, authorities said. Four more later died after being taken to hospital, said Bexar County Judge Nelson Wolff, the county's top elected official. Among the dead were 39 males and 11 females, he said.

San Antonio Mayor Ron Nirenberg said those who died “were likely trying to find a better life.”

“This is nothing short of a horrific human tragedy,” Nirenberg said.

Attempts to cross the U.S. border from Mexico have claimed thousands of lives in recent decades.

President Joe Biden called the latest deaths “horrifying and heartbreaking.” He said initial reports were that smugglers or human traffickers were to blame.

“Exploiting vulnerable individuals for profit is shameful, as is political grandstanding around tragedy, and my administration will continue to do everything possible to stop human smugglers and traffickers from taking advantage of people who are seeking to enter the United States between ports of entry,” Biden said in a statement.

The home countries of all of the migrants and how long they were abandoned on the side of the road were not immediately known.

Twenty-two were from Mexico, seven from Guatemala and two from Honduras, Roberto Velasco Alvarez, head of the North America department in Mexico's Foreign Relations Department, said on Twitter. Desperate families were reaching out to the Mexican consulate in San Antonio throughout the morning, an employee there said.

South Texas has long been the busiest area for illegal border crossings. Migrants ride in vehicles through Border Patrol checkpoints to San Antonio, the closest major city, where they disperse across the United States.

Wolff said Tuesday that authorities believe the truck came from Laredo, a border city about 241 km south.

“They had just parked it on the side of the road,” Wolff said. “Apparently had mechanical problems and left it there. The sheriff thinks it came across from Laredo.”

Three people were taken into custody, but it was unclear if they were connected with human trafficking.

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2022-06-29T07:00:00.0000000Z

2022-06-29T07:00:00.0000000Z

https://vancouversun.pressreader.com/article/281852942259156

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