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Over 300 migrants found in abandoned lorry in south-east Mexico

March 7, 2023 No Comments

Mexican authorities said they found 343 migrants, including over 100 unaccompanied minors, in an abandoned lorry in the south-eastern state of Veracruz on the Gulf of Mexico.

The country’s migration authority said in a statement on Monday that the lorry was found on Sunday night abandoned near the community of Acayucan on the road connecting the cities of La Tinaja and Cosamaloapan.

Among the migrants were 103 unaccompanied minors, mostly from Guatemala, authorities said.

The trailer also contained 212 adults from Honduras, El Salvador, and Ecuador.The trailer had been modified to allow ventilation.

According to authorities, the rescued individuals wore colourful bracelets, presumably to be identified by the smugglers.

Last year, more than 50 people believed to have been migrants were found dead in a parked lorry on the outskirts of San Antonio in the U.S. state of Texas.

They had been left locked in the lorry’s trailer in sweltering heat with no air conditioning.

Between October 2021 and October 2022, the U.S. Border Protection Agency registered more than 2 million attempts by migrants to enter the United States.

Most leave their homes because of poverty, political crises, and crime.

Many people from crisis-ridden Central and South American countries, such as Haiti, Cuba, and Venezuela, venture on the long, dangerous journey to the U.S. through Mexico.

Many migrants do not even reach the U.S. border but are stopped by Mexican soldiers and sent back.

World News

Gunmen kill another journalist in Mexico

February 2, 2022 No Comments

Gunmen on Monday killed another Mexican journalist, Roberto Toledo, in fresh onslaughts against the media in the North American country.

Toledo was the fourth journalist to be killed by criminals murdered in less than one month.

The journalist, according to his employers, Mexico’s Michoacan State, had received death threats in the past.

The killings had already sparked protests, with press freedom groups urging the government to do more to protect journalists.

Two of those killed in recent weeks, including Toledo, had been part of federal protection programmes for journalists while one was about to join the campaign before he was felled by assassins’ bullets, the rights groups said.

World News

54 killed in Mexico as truck carrying migrants crashes

December 10, 2021 No Comments

Fifty four people have been confirmed killed with more than 100 injured after a truck carrying migrants, mostly from Central America, overturned in southern Mexico on Thursday, local authorities report.

The incident happened in Mexico’s Chiapas state, a border town with Guatemala, when the truck carrying dozens of migrants tried to enter Mexico, with the intention of moving on to the United States.

It is not immediately clear what caused the crash or why the victims were crammed into the truck but officials say many people who embark on the dangerous migrations from Central American countries like Honduras, Guatemala, and Nicaragua, do so because of violence, corruption, food insecurity, and a lack of economic opportunity have left many with no other choice.

The dangerous journey, often organized by people smugglers, travels north through Mexico to reach the US border, the officials say.

Mexican Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard, who confirmed the accident, said some of the people who died included foreign nationals.

“My condolences to the victims and affected families. In communication with the State Government and Civil Protection, we make contact with the foreign ministries of the affected countries,” Ebrard wrote on Twitter.

Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador also shared his condolences on Twitter.

“I deeply regret the tragedy caused by the overturning of a trailer in Chiapas carrying Central American migrants,” the President said. “It’s very painful. I hug the families of the victims,” he wrote.

Lifestyle, World News

A bill that will legalize the use of Cannabis– Marijuana has now been approved

March 11, 2021 No Comments

Mexico’s lower house has approved a bill that would legalise the recreational use of cannabis.

It will now go to the Senate for a final vote, which President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s party is confident will pass.

This would make Mexico one of the world’s largest regulated markets for cannabis.

Mexico has struggled with a bloody war against powerful drug cartels, with violence killing thousands yearly.

Lawmakers voted in favour of the bill by 316 votes to 129. It had already been approved in the Senate in November but another vote is needed following some alterations by the lower house.

The legislation would let users with a permit carry up to 28g and grow as many as eight plants at home for personal use. At present, it is illegal to carry more than five grams.

It would also allow for other licences for the cultivation, transformation, research and export or import of cannabis, Reuters news agency reports.

Mr López Obrador has argued that the bill could help tackle the country’s powerful drug cartels.

One lawmaker from his Morena party told AFP news agency that the law would help to achieve peace.

However critics have argued that the bill could make marijuana more accessible to children. Others have questioned why Mexicans would be able to buy as much alcohol as they like, yet be liable for prosecution if they grow more than eight cannabis plants.

Should the bill be approved, Mexico would become the third country in the world, after Uruguay and Canada, to legalise cannabis for recreational use nationwide.

A number of foreign cannabis-growing companies from Canada and California are said to be interested in tapping into the market opportunity presented by the legislation.