Two sisters from Egypt among those killed in Mexican army shooting – The Frontier Post

TAPACHULA, Mexico (AP): An 11-year-old Egyptian girl and her 18-year-old sister were among those killed after Mexican army troops opened fire on a truck carrying migrants earlier this week, an official said Friday.

The sisters and four other migrants from Peru and Honduras, among others, were murdered on Tuesday in the southern state of Chiapas.

A prosecutor’s office official confirmed the identification of the two sisters and said their father was injured in the shooting but survived.

Federal officials, including newly inaugurated President Claudia Sheinbaum, again declined Friday to confirm the age or gender of the six migrants killed in the shooting, which occurred on Sheinbaum’s first day on the job.

Soldiers claimed they heard shots and returned fire, and officials have studiously avoided saying the migrants were killed by army gunfire. However, that appears to be the case, and two soldiers have been relieved of duty and turned over to civilian prosecutors for questioning.

The killings have called into question Sheinbaum’s statements during her first days as president that human rights would be at the forefront of her administration’s policies.

Asked about her immigration policies Friday, Sheinbaum said only that the killings were under investigation and doubled down on previous claims that the government is not violating human rights.

“First and foremost, human rights are respected,” Sheinbaum said. “That is very important, that is why it is called a humanistic immigration policy, because human rights come first.”

Three of the dead were from Egypt, and one each from Peru and Honduras. The other apparently has not yet been identified.

Ten other migrants were injured in the shooting. but there is no information about their circumstances.

The Peruvian Foreign Ministry confirmed that one Peruvian was killed and demanded an “urgent investigation” into the killings. Peru and Mexico have had damaged relations since a diplomatic row in 2022.

It was the worst killing of migrants by authorities in Mexico since police in the northern state of Tamaulipas killed 17 migrants in 2021.

Sheinbaum has said the shootings are being investigated to see if commanders may be punished, noting that “a situation like this cannot be repeated.”

But she left it out Thursday during a ceremony at an army base in Mexico City, where army and navy commanders pledged their loyalty to her in front of massive combat vehicles and hundreds of troops.

“In our country there is no martial law, there are no human rights violations,” Sheinbaum said, promising pay increases for soldiers and sailors.

The shootings took place on Tuesday near the town of Tapachula, near the border with Guatemala.

The Defense Ministry initially said soldiers claimed to have heard shots as a convoy of three trucks passed the soldiers’ position.

The Public Prosecution Service later said that all three trucks ignored the stopping ban and tried to flee. The soldiers pursued them and reported that they were under fire from the convoy, and returned fire.

One of the trucks eventually stopped, the driver reportedly fled and a total of 33 migrants were found on board, from the three countries already mentioned, as well as Nepal, Cuba, India and Pakistan.

The Defense Ministry said four of the migrants were found dead and 12 injured. Two of the injured later died of their injuries. Sheinbaum declined to say whether any weapons were found in the migrants’ truck.

The area is a common route for smuggling migrants, who are often packed into overcrowded trucks. It has also been the scene of battles involving drug cartels, and the department said the trucks were “similar to those used by criminal groups in the region.”

Irineo Mujica, a migrant rights activist, said he doubted whether the migrants or their smugglers opened fire.

“It is really impossible that these people would have shot at the military,” Mujica said. “They usually get through by paying bribes.”

If the deaths were the result of army fire, as seems likely, it could be a major embarrassment to Sheinbaum.

The new president has followed the example of former President Andrés Manuel López Obrador by giving the armed forces extraordinary powers in law enforcement, state-owned enterprises, airports, trains and construction projects.

It is not the first time Mexican troops have opened fire on vehicles carrying migrants in the area, which is also the focus of cartel fighting.

In 2021, the quasi-military National Guard opened fire on a pickup truck carrying migrants, killing one and wounding four. The guards initially claimed that some of the people in the migrant truck were armed and had fired shots, but the government’s National Human Rights Commission later found this to be untrue.

And in 2021, state police in Tamaulipas killed seventeen migrants and two Mexican citizens. These officers also initially claimed that they had come under fire from the migrants’ vehicles.

They claimed they were responding to the shots fired and believed they were pursuing the vehicles of one of the country’s drug cartels, which regularly participate in migrant smuggling. But that later turned out to be untrue, and police actually burned the victims’ bodies in an attempt to cover up the crime.

Eleven police officers were convicted of murder and sentenced to more than 50 years in prison.