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A cargo truck without license plates careened off a road in southern Mexico and turned over, killing 23 people inside, state officials said Thursday night.
More than 30 people were reported injured in the accident involving an approximately three-ton Ford Super Duty pick-up truck attached to a cargo container, according to a statement from the Chiapas attorney general’s office.
The crash happened around dusk on a highway about 25 miles (41 km) northeast of Tuxtla-Gutierrez , the capital of southern Chiapas state which borders Guatemala.
Officials did not give a breakdown of the victims’ nationalities but said they were Central Americans. Chiapas is a major transit point for migrants, especially from Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador, as many trek through Mexico on their way to the U.S. border.
Media reported that investigators are considering the possibility that the driver of the truck lost control due to a mechanical failure, citing other state authorities.
This morning, the Prosecutor General’s Office in Chiapas (FGE) confirmed that 23 foreigners had died and 33 were injured in the accident.
The truck was carrying 56 Central-Americans who were headed to the United States.
Yesterday, the state prosecutor Jorge Luis Llaven Abarca met with members of the military and both federal and state police forces to draw up an action plan to strengthen security at the Soyaló-Chicoasén stretch , which is used by migrant smugglers to avoid checkpoints at the Pan-American highway .
At a press conference, he stated that the state’s law enforcement institutions would “establish new checkpoints to cover transport routes used by human traffickers.”
Llaven Abarca explained that the foreigners had entered the country on March 4 through the La Mesilla crossing point in Guatemala and continued their journey through the Frontera Comalapa, La Trinitaria, Comitán, and San Cristóbal de las Casas municipalities.
The truck driver was also injured in the crash, though he was removed from the seen by other human traffickers traveling in a different vehicle.
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