MEXICO CITY (Reuters) -The bodies of more than a dozen Hondurans have been identified among the 51 people who died after being trapped inside a trailer truck found this week on the outskirts of San Antonio, Texas, a senior Mexican official said on Wednesday.
Francisco Garduno, head of the Mexican government’s National Migration Institute (INM), told a news conference that 14 Hondurans, seven Guatemalans and two Salvadorans died alongside the 27 Mexican fatalities reported on Tuesday.
Two Mexican nationals have been charged in U.S. federal court over the deadliest human smuggling tragedy in recent U.S. history. The deaths have sparked widespread consternation.
One of the bodies found in Texas had not yet been identified, and 16 migrants were still in six local hospitals, Garduno said. Three of the injured are Mexicans, and the nationalities of 13 others remain unclear, he added.
Garduno said there were 67 migrants on board the truck, a number lower than some officials had previously hinted at.
Many families in Mexico and Central America are anxiously awaiting news of loved-ones following the truck’s discovery on Monday in an industrial area on the edge of San Antonio about 160 miles (250 km) north of the U.S.-Mexico border.
(Reporting by Valentine Hilaire;Editing by Dave Graham and Alison Williams)
