X-rays show 513 migrants jammed in trucks

Mexico police find 513 US-bound migrants in trucks

Tuxtla Gutierrez, Mexico - Police in the southern state of Chiapas in Mexico are 513 immigrants on Tuesday in two tractor-trailers bound for the United States, and said they had been transported in dangerously crowded conditions.

Some of the migrants were suffering from dehydration after traveling for hours, clinging to ropes hanging cargo inside the containers to keep them upright as the truck bounced along the border with Guatemala, and allow more immigrants to become more crowded on the ground.

The trucks had air holes punched in the top of the containers, but the migrants interviewed in the office of state prosecutors said they lacked air and water. The trucks were heading to the central city of Puebla, where the immigrants said they said they would be loaded onto a second set of vehicles for the trip to the U.S. border.

"We are suffering, it was very hot and clung to the ropes," said Mario, a 23-year-old Honduran immigrant who identified himself only by his first name, for security reasons. Mexico's National Human Rights Commission says that thousands of illegal immigrants are kidnapped and held for ransom by drug gangs in Mexico each year.

None of them would say that if a drug gang had been involved in massive smuggling scheme broke early Tuesday when police discovered the state of Chiapas migrants while using X-ray equipment into trucks at a checkpoint on the outskirts of the city of Tuxtla Gutierrez.

The immigrants said the smugglers were charging about $ 7,000 each to enter the United States. A Guatemalan immigrant who identified himself as John said he was in his hometown in Guatemala was not an option, noting that "many of us are Indians and we can not stay in our homes. There is no work, and there is nothing to eat. "

An agent of the National Immigration Institute who was not authorized to be quoted by name said it was the biggest shipment of migrants detained in Mexico in recent years.

Police also arrested four people accused of smuggling of migrants, which are Central and South America and Asia, the Chiapas state prosecutors said in a statement.

The alleged smugglers tried to escape the police, but were chased and caught, prosecutors said.

The National Immigration Institute said in a statement that 410 of the immigrants were from Guatemala, 47 from El Salvador, 32 from Ecuador, 12 from India, six of Nepal, three from China and one from Japan, the Dominican Republic and Honduras . There were 32 women and four children between them.

In January, the Chiapas state authorities found 219 immigrants crammed into a truck trailer.

Most migrants from Central America, but six were from Sri Lanka and four from Nepal.