46 migrants found dead in tractor trailer along US-Mexico border

Texas City officials found bodies of 46 migrants inside a tractor-trailer in San Antonio (US) on Monday.

The incident is another grim reminder of the horrors of rampant human trafficking along the US-Mexico border.

The Texas police have termed it the worst case of human trafficking on the Mexico-US border yet and arrested three persons so far.

According to a San Antonio Fire Department official, “stacks of bodies” were found in the trailer in a remote area with no water to drink. Sixteen people were found alive, who were then taken to the nearby hospital with complaints of heat stroke and exhaustion. There were four children among those who were hospitalised, the fire department official said.

The abandoned trailer was first spotted by a person living in a nearby building who heard a cry for help. The person said the trailer doors were partially opened and when he looked inside there were several dead bodies inside.

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San Antonio Fire Chief Charles Hood told media persons that the people admitted “were hot to the touch and were suffering from heat stroke and exhaustion.”  Hood said it was a refrigerated tractor-trailer, but the A/C wasn’t functioning.

It is summer time in San Antonio where the temperature is about 103 degrees Fahrenheit (39.4 degrees Celsius) with high humidity.

A similar incident was reported in the area, close to I-35 highway, in 2017 when 10 migrants were found dead in a tractor-trailer in a Wal-Mart parking lot.

Mexico’s Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard took to Twitter to describe the incident as “tragedy in Texas” and extended “every possible help to the victims”.

Human trafficking in a challenge along the US-Mexico border. Former US President Donald Trump had controversially implemented several strict measures which were criticised by Mexico and invited international attention.

The present President, Joe Biden, a Democrat, has promised to reverse some of the hardline immigration policies of Trump, but it is a delicate topic to handle ahead of the midterm congressional elections in November.