Mexican army kills six migrants ‘mistaken for cartel members’

Claudia Sheinbaum, the new president, vowed killings ‘must be investigated and punished’

Six migrants have died in Mexico after soldiers opened fire on a pick-up truck the army believed may have been transporting members of a cartel.
The incident happened on Tuesday night about 25 miles from the city of Tapachula, a hub used by migrants to cross the river that separates Mexico and Guatemala as they head north towards the United States.
It was immediately condemned by Claudia Sheinbaum on her first full day as Mexico’s president. The killings “must be investigated and punished,” she said, adding: “A situation like this cannot be repeated.”
It is believed the victims were from Egypt, El Salvador and Peru. The truck had also been carrying migrants from Nepal, Cuba, India and Pakistan.
The Mexican defence ministry’s initial assessment of the incident claimed the truck had tried to evade an army checkpoint before stating that soldiers had been responding to gunfire.
In the latter version of events, the vehicle was accompanied by two flatbed trucks frequently used by the drug cartels to wage a ferocious turf war in the state of Chiapas, which has resulted in dozens of murders this year.
The cartels, originally dedicated to drug trafficking, now increasingly exploit migrants, both by kidnapping them and charging them to take them north, often in unsafe conditions.
The defence ministry suspended the two soldiers who discharged their guns and said it was cooperating with federal prosecutors.
The deaths have brought Mexico’s handling of illegal migration back into focus as it remains one of the most debated issues in the US presidential campaign.
The Mexican government has come under intense pressure from the Biden administration to reduce the flow of migrants both entering Mexico from the South and then passing into the US in the north.
But both the Mexican police and military, which has become heavily involved in civilian law enforcement, including migration, have a long history of corruption and human rights abuses.