In Mexico, 7 Migrants in Packed Train Die
SAN CRISTOBAL DE LAS CASAS, Mexico — Two people were found dead after authorities opened two sealed train cars packed with illegal workers hoping to reach the United States. Five others died soon afterward.
The two cars carried 200 people, officials said. Forty-six people were hospitalized, but most were released.
The migrants, who had left Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala in search of work, were discovered Wednesday while en route through Mexico. Immigration authorities intercepted a train traveling from the southern state of Tabasco, said Javier Jimenez Herrera, a representative of the National Migration Institute.
The train’s operator, engineer and brakeman were arrested, Jimenez said.
Authorities initially tried to stop the train in Palenque, a municipality in the southern Mexican state of Chiapas, but the train’s operators ignored the order and kept going, Jimenez said.
Mexican army and federal and state officials intercepted the train in the Chiapas municipality of Playas de Catazaja, he said.
When authorities inspected the train, they found two sealed cars crammed with the 200 illegal immigrants. Two of the migrants already had suffocated.
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