Nine perish from heat in truck in US

NINE suspected migrants were found dead on Sunday after being packed inside an overheated truck that was discovered in a Walmart parking lot in Texas, and 30 others were hospitalised in what police said appeared to be a “horrific” human trafficking crime.

Seventeen of those taken to hospitals after the discovery in the early morning hours in San Antonio – about a two-hour drive from the Mexican border – were in critical condition, suffering from heatstroke and dehydration, authorities said.

At least 39 people were in the trailer, including one person who was later found in a nearby wooded area, federal prosecutors said in a statement.

At least two were school-age children, Fire Chief Charles Hood said.

It was not immediately clear how many suspected migrants might have fled and were unaccounted for.

City police chief William McManus told CNN that the dead were all adult men. Authorities were not releasing the victims’ names or nationalities until their families were notified.

Mexican officials were working with US authorities to identify the dead, the country’s foreign ministry said.

McManus told a news conference that someone from the truck had approached a Walmart employee asking for water.

The employee brought water to the truck in the parking lot, and then called the police who “found eight people dead in the back of that trailer”, the police chief said, calling it a “horrific tragedy”.

“We’re looking at a human trafficking crime,” McManus said.

The truck driver had been arrested, he said.

Federal prosecutors said James Mathew Bradley Jr, 60, of Florida, was in custody and would be charged yesterday morning in San Antonio.

Texas Governor Greg Abbott confirmed on Sunday evening that the death toll had climbed to nine and called the case “a heartbreaking tragedy”, in a statement.

“Texas will continue to provide protection for the victims who have been robbed of their most basic rights, and bring down the full weight of the law for the perpetrators of this despicable crime,” he said in a statement.

People in the truck were “hot to the touch”, Hood said. The air-conditioner in the trailer was not working.

Hood estimated the temperature in the truck could have reached 65ºC.

“If that truck would have been there overnight, there’s no doubt that we would have lost all 38 of those people,” Hood said.

McManus said: “This is not an isolated incident . . . this happens all the time.”

The police chief said store security footage showed that some vehicles came to pick up some travellers who were on the truck and who had made it out alive. It was not immediately clear how long the truck had been in the parking lot, and police were working to determine who owns it.

President Donald Trump has pledged to build a security wall along America’s border with Mexico in order to crack down on illegal immigration.

So far, the project has been stalled by reluctance in Congress to dedicate funding for the barrier. — AFP