Mexican police have found 65 lost and starving migrants from India, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka abandoned inside the trailer of a truck in the coastal state of Veracruz, according to local media reports.
The reports suggest there are 17 migrants from Bangladesh, 36 from India and 12 from Sri Lanka.
Federal Police agents discovered the abandoned trailer, and when they opened the container, they found the 65 undocumented migrants in sub-human conditions and with severe dehydration symptoms, said the reports.
The migrants, according to the police, set out on their journey on April 28 and have recounted a long and arduous trip in their effort to reach the US-Mexico border.
They reportedly traveled from Sri Lanka to Qatar, then to Turkey, Colombia, Panama and from there to Ecuador. The migrants then traveled by bus to the Guatemalan border to finally arrive in Mexico by boat. In Mexican territory, they were abandoned in the southern state of Veracruz.
“It is very rare to find migrants of this type of nationalities, they are usually Central American and even Cuban,” said an official quoted by the local media.
Due to its geographical location, Veracruz is a forced stop for migrants, mostly Central Americans, who try to reach the United States for a better life.
The migrants were provided medical attention, water and food, and transferred to a facility where they will undergo a “migratory review” to determine whether they are eligible to remain in Mexico.
This Wednesday the Mexican government announced that it had found more than 19,000 migrants in the past two months under similar situations.
Mexico has launched a crackdown on undocumented migrants heading toward the US border under a deal to avert tariffs that President Donald Trump had threatened to impose if it did not do more to stem a recent surge of Central Americans arriving in the US.
Mexican authorities say they are working to prevent migrants from being smuggled on trains, commercial buses and semi-trucks but semi-trucks are of particular concern.
Authorities found 1,707 migrants in 21 semi-trucks in the past two months and in one incident, in Veracruz state, 791 people were being transported with no ventilation.
While the Mexican government’s crackdown has reportedly brought down the number of migrants reaching the US border, critics of the deal say the new measures—including the deployment of 21,000 National Guards—will push more migrants to resort to human traffickers, who often have links to powerful drug cartels.