At least 16 migrants, including three children, were killed in a horrific bus crash in southern Mexico on Friday, officials said.
The passenger bus was carrying about 55 Venezuelan and Peruvian asylum seekers in the state of Oaxaca when it overturned, Mexico’s State Protection Coordination said on X, formerly known as Twitter.
At least three of the migrants killed are children, in addition to two women and 11 men, according to the National Migration Institute.
Twenty-nine others were injured, though there was no immediate information on their condition.
The carnage was so severe that the NMI originally reported that 18 were killed, but later lowered the figure — claiming there had been an overcount due to some of the bodies being dismembered.
The cause of the crash, and whether other vehicles were involved, is not yet clear.
Photographs of the accident show the passenger bus lying on its side on a curvy section of the highway with its top blown off.
The windows on the left side of the bus were shattered, leaving what appeared to be luggage and pieces of the vehicle strewn across the street.
Salomón Jara Cruz, the governor of Oaxaca, said that state officials were joining multiple other national, state and municipal agencies in providing aid to those involved in the crash.
“We deeply regret the fatal accident that occurred on the Oaxaca-Cuacnopalan highway, in which several migrants died,” he said on X. “Our condolences to the families of the deceased and all our solidarity and support to the injured.”
The surviving migrants are being awarded a Visitor Card for Humanitarian Reasons to allow them to continue receiving medical care while in the foreign country, the NMI said.
The tragic crash is the latest in a series of migrant deaths in Mexico amid a surge in migrants traveling toward the US border.
Last week, 10 Cuban migrants died — including one minor — and 17 others were seriously injured after a freight truck they were riding in crashed on a highway in the neighboring state of Chiapas, near the border with Guatemala.
The Institute said the driver of the vehicle had apparently been speeding and lost control of the truck, which was carrying 27 migrants at the time. The driver fled the scene.
Also in the same Mexican state last week, a truck flipped over on a highway in Chiapas, killing two Central American migrants and injuring another 27.
An overwhelming amount of migrants have been making the dangerous journey across the Mexican border in order to find asylum in the US.
In September alone, more than 260,000 migrants crossed into the US — setting a new monthly record that rivals the population of citizens living in St. Petersburg, Fla.
With Post wires
