Guatemalan authorities on Wednesday said that they arrested seven people in connection with the deaths of 53 migrants in the U.S. state of Texas in 2022.
Guatemala’s Ministry of the Interior said that the leader of the gang Los Orozco, which it said is “dedicated to smuggling migrants to the U.S.,’’ and six others were arrested.
In 2022, 53 undocumented individuals from Mexico, Guatemala and Honduras died and 11 were injured in San Antonio, Texas, after being smuggled into the U.S. in the trailer of a lorry.
It said that six people had been previously charged in the U.S. in relation to the human smuggling operation.
According to U.S. authorities 66 people, including eight children and one pregnant woman, were loaded into the back of the lorry to be smuggled into the country.
It noted that forty-eight of the migrants, including the pregnant woman, were found dead at the scene, while five more died in hospital.
“On June 27, 2022, in a migration tragedy in San Antonio Texas, 53 migrants died inside a lorry.
“This news spread around the world,’’ said Guatemalan Minister of the Interior Francisco Jiménez in a post on X.
“Today we dismantled ‘Los Orozcos’ by capturing their leader alias ‘Rigo’ and six other members presumed to be responsible.’’
Thousands of migrants fleeing poverty, violence and political crisis seek to reach the U.S. via Mexico.
The U.S. border protection agency recorded more than two million attempts to cross the border into the U.S. between October 2021 and October 2022.
They increasingly include migrants from Venezuela, Haiti and Cuba, alongside those from Central America. (dpa/NAN).
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