Mexico: Four Cuban migrants die in a car accident in the state of Veracruz

Four migrants of Cuban origin died and eight more injured this Wednesday in a car accident in the Mexican state of Veracruz (East), an obligatory passage for thousands of people seeking to reach the northern border and later to the United States.

According to police reports, the events occurred on the La Tinaja-Cosoleacaque highway, in southern Veracruz, where the vehicle where the migrants were traveling suffered an accident and overturned.

According to the first versions, apparently a tire blew out and caused the vehicle to fall into a ravine, where four people died (two women and two men).

At the scene, eight more Cubans were injured, including two women and a baby less than one year old, who were transferred to local hospitals, where they are reported to be stable.

Police and ministerial authorities set up a fence at the scene of the accident and began investigations to determine the causes of the accident.

Due to its geographical location, Veracruz is historically an obligatory passage for migrants, mostly Central Americans, who seek to reach the United States; However, in the last two months, the number of people from Haiti and Cuba seeking to reach the northern border of Mexico has increased.

At least three drug cartels operate in this entity, which is why high levels of insecurity are reported, since drug transport routes and migrant passage routes are disputed.

Southern Mexico registers in recent months a historical migratory flow with 147,000 undocumented persons detected in Mexico from January to August, triple that of 2020, and a record of 212,000 undocumented persons detained in July alone by the Customs and Border Protection (CBP, in English) of USA.

A week ago, from Tapachula, a municipality in the southeastern state of Chiapas, four caravans of migrants – many of them Haitians – left a few weeks ago, but all were dismantled in harsh operations by the security forces.

Since October 2018, and despite the tightening of surveillance on the southern border of Mexico, thousands of migrants from Central America, but also from Cuba, Haiti and various African and Asian countries have entered Mexican territory with the aim of reaching United States.

Human traffickers seek routes for foreigners and sometimes transit through the states of Chiapas, Tabasco, Veracruz, Oaxaca and Puebla on their journey to the United States.