NUEVO TEAPA, Mexico (Reuters) – Almost 130 Central American migrants were found in the back of a truck in the Mexican state of Veracruz on Thursday after authorities heard punches and cries for help, the National Guard said.
The truck driver was stopped for not wearing his seat belt on a highway in southern Veracruz, the National Guard said in a statement.
After hearing cries for help, authorities opened the rear of the vehicle to find 128 men, women and children huddled in “inhuman conditions” that were inadequate to prevent the spread of COVID-19, according to the statement.
He added that the driver had been arrested.
The incident occurred days after the last large caravan bound for the United States of nearly 8,000 migrants was dismounted by officials in Guatemala after crossing to the country from Honduras.
A Reuters witness who spoke to the migrants traveling in the truck in Veracruz said they were not part of the caravan.
Thousands of people in Central America have been trying to travel north after the consecutive hurricanes in November displaced more than half a million people in the region, according to data from the International Organization for Migration.
Many hoped to reach the border with the United States after the inauguration of US President Joe Biden on Wednesday, who acted quickly on his first day in office to dismantle several of President Donald Donald’s hardline immigration policies. Trump.
Guatemalan security officials, after some clashes with a large group of migrants camped on a highway, returned thousands of people back to Honduras and El Salvador by bus this week.
Some migrants from the caravan said they had fled security forces and spread across the mountains of Guatemala.
(Reporting by Tamara Corro in Nuevo Teapa, Mexico; text by Cassandra Garrison; Editing by Paul Simao)