(C) El Paso Matters.org This story was originally published by El Paso Matters.org and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Fire at Juárez migrant center kills dozens [1] ['Corrie Boudreaux', 'More Corrie Boudreaux', 'El Paso Matters'] Date: 2023-03-28 CIUDAD JUAREZ – At least 39 people were killed in a fire Monday night in the city’s main processing center for migrants, and another 29 injured, Mexican officials said. The fire was at the National Institute of Migration office at the foot of the Stanton Street/Lerdo bridge, one of two bridges linking Downtown El Paso to Juárez. The fire was in a facility that housed adult men from Central and South America. Firefighters and Mexican soldiers stacked bodies wrapped in mylar blankets outside the migrant processing center. Investigators haven’t announced a cause of the fire, but Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador blamed the detained migrants. “This had to do with a protest that (the migrants) started after we suppose they found out that they were going to be deported and as a protest they placed mats at the door of the shelter and set them on fire,” he said in a speech Tuesday morning. Multiple media reports said most of the dead were Veneuzuelans, who in recent months have comprised the largest group of migrants arriving in Juárez to cross into the United States. The Guatemalan Foreign Ministry said 28 of the dead and injured were from that country. The killed and injured were people who had been expelled from the United States under a public health law known as Title 42, or others seized this Monday by Mexican agents in a special operation carried out in Juárez to remove them from the road crossings where they clean windows, sell sweets or ask for money, La Verdad reported. The bodies of men killed in a fire at Juarez’s migrant processing center were wrapped in mylar blankets and laid on the street late Monday. A(Corrie Boudreaux/El Paso Matters) Tensions have been rising in recent weeks between migrants and Juárez officials. Earlier this month, Juárez Mayor Cruz Pérez Cuéllar vowed a crackdown on migrants, saying they were bad for the regional economy. Pérez statement came a day after hundreds of Venezuelan migrants, spurred by false social media reports that they would be allowed to cross into the United States, massed at the top of the Paso del Norte Bridge linking the downtown areas of Juárez and El Paso. “It’s the (Mexican federal) migration’s fault, what’s happening is their fault,” Vianey Infante, a Venezuelan migrant who was waiting for her husband’s release outside the immigration station when the fire broke out, told La Verdad. Infante said she went to the processing center because authorities told her they would release her husband because he was verified as a member of a family unit. After 9:30 p.m. she saw a lot of smoke coming out of the immigration center. “I peeked out and started crying,” she said. She saw women fleeing from the fire but not men, and she said she began fighting with Mexican immigration agents. “They are inhuman,” Infante said. She said she was told that her husband was taken to a hospital. El Paso Catholic Bishop Mark Seitz said the deadly conflagration should serve as a call to address the needs of migrants at the border. “This tragedy underscores the urgency of addressing the complex humanitarian crisis that has continued to unfold unabated in our border community. Our brother and sister migrants, who are in many cases fleeing extreme violence, persecution, and extreme poverty, deserve dignity, compassion, and the protection of their human rights as children of God,” Seitz said. “As a faith community, we are called to respond to their suffering with love, empathy, and support.” This is a developing story and will be updated. [END] --- [1] Url: https://elpasomatters.org/2023/03/28/juarez-migrant-center-fire/ Published and (C) by El Paso Matters.org Content appears here under this condition or license: Creative Commons CC BY-ND 4.0 International. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/elpasomatters/