Deadly fire at Mexico migrant center kills dozens

Kathmandu: Dozens of people were killed and injured after a deadly fire ripped through an immigration detention center in northern Mexico.

The blaze occurred late Monday at a facility in Ciudad Juarez near the Mexico-US border. At least 39 people died in the fire, and many were injured. Twenty-nine injured people were taken to hospitals, said Mexico’s National Immigration Institute in a statement. The facility was holding 68 adult men from Central and South America, it said.

Images from the scene showed ambulances, firefighters, and vans from the morgue around the smoke-covered facility with rows of bodies lying under shimmery silver sheets.

Vinagly, a Venezuelan woman, stood outside the immigration centre, desperate for information about her 27-year-old husband detained there.

“He was taken away in an ambulance,” she told AFP news agency. “They [immigration officials] don’t tell you anything. A family member can die and they don’t tell you he’s dead.”

Ciudad Juarez is a major crossing point for migrants entering the United States. Its shelters are full of migrants waiting for opportunities to cross or who have requested asylum in the United States and are waiting out the process.