The News
Friday 29 of March 2024

Mexico stages raid on train, detains dozens of migrants


AP Photo,Migrants catch a ride on a freight train on their way north, in Salto del Agua, Chiapas state, Mexico, Tuesday, June 25, 2019. The group’s next stop will be Coatzacoalcos, Veracruz state. Mexico has deployed 6,500 National Guard members in the southern part of the country, plus another 15,000 soldiers along its northern border in a bid to reduce the number of migrants traveling through its territory to reach the U.S. (AP Photo/Marco Ugarte)
AP Photo,Migrants catch a ride on a freight train on their way north, in Salto del Agua, Chiapas state, Mexico, Tuesday, June 25, 2019. The group’s next stop will be Coatzacoalcos, Veracruz state. Mexico has deployed 6,500 National Guard members in the southern part of the country, plus another 15,000 soldiers along its northern border in a bid to reduce the number of migrants traveling through its territory to reach the U.S. (AP Photo/Marco Ugarte)

MEXICO CITY (AP) — About 100 Mexican soldiers and immigration agents have detained dozens of Central American migrants riding a freight train in southern Mexico.

The operation in the pre-dawn hours of Thursday is one of the few confirmed raids on the train since Mexico began cracking down on migrants in recent months.

Soldiers climbed ladders up to the top of freight cars shouting, “This is the army, you’re surrounded!” Migrants tried to flee on foot.

One soldier was seen wrestling a young, flailing man into a waiting immigration van. Agents filled three such vehicles with migrants, but hundreds more were apparently able to flee into the surrounding brush in Chiapas state.

The most recent such raid occurred May 1 in the state of Oaxaca.