10/8/24

By Camilo Antonio Perez Bustillo

URGENT STATEMENT FROM WITNESS AT THE BORDER, PLEASE SHARE WIDELY:

Six Migrants Killed by Mexican Army as U.S and Mexico Intensify Efforts to Contain Migrant Flows through Militarization, as New President Takes Office

Six migrants from Egypt, El Salvador, Honduras, and Perú were killed the night of October 1, and 10 wounded as the result of a Mexican Army unit’s assault on three vehicles transporting 33 migrants on flatbed trucks along a remote road heading north through Chiapas from the Guatemalan border, between Huixtla and Villa Comaltitlán. The migrants killed included two sisters from Egypt, one of them a young girl aged 11.

Witness at the Border respectfully joins the families and communities of origin of these migrants in mourning these tragic deaths, which reflect the mounting human cost of the cruel policies of militarization and criminalization which characterize U.S and Mexican migration and border policy and their equivalents throughout the world.

This massacre is the latest in a series of similar incidents of persecution and terror against migrants in transit throughout Mexico since 2010, and coincided with the inauguration of Mexico’s new president, Claudia Scheinbaum, as the successor to Andrés Manuel López Obrador (widely known as AMLO).

Migrant flows have increased throughout Mexico during the last year, and especially at its southern border. The response has been increased militarization and the criminalization of migrants, driven by U.S pressures on Mexico to intensify its containment efforts, as migration and border policy issues continue to polarize the imminent U.S elections.

This incident also coincided with national commemorations in Mexico of the October 2, 1968 massacre of hundreds of protesters by Mexican Army troops. These observances included Scheinbaum’s issuance of a decree pledging that her administration will insure that abuses of this kind are prevented and duly investigated and punished, if they occur.

The Chiapas massacre poses the first test of Scheinbaum’s overall commitment to human rights, and regarding her administration’s willingness to maintain and deepen Mexico’s collaboration with migrant containment policies in the service of U.S imperatives. These pressures are likely to intensify in the wake of the U.S elections in November.

Witness at the Border is committed to bearing witness and standing in solidarity with migrants’ universal rights to freedom of movement, asylum, refuge, and sanctuary, on both sides of the border.

ALL RIGHTS FOR ALL, WITHOUT BORDERS