Nine dead as migrants found in back of lorry in Texas heatwave
NINE people have died, with 19 more in a serious condition, after being found in the back of a tractor-trailer in a car park at a branch of Walmart in Texas, in what police are calling a horrific case of immigrant smuggling.
The lorry’s driver was arrested after eight people were found dead and 28 survivors taken to hospital, where 20 were in an extremely critical or serious condition. One later died in hospital, said Liz Johnson, spokeswoman for US immigration and customs enforcement. The eight others were being treated for lesser injuries, including heat stroke and dehydration. Their nationalities were not yet known.
Temperatures in San Antonio, where the trailer was found, reached 100F (38C) on Saturday and did not dip below 90F (32C) until after 10pm, according to the National Weather Service. The lorry’s trailer did not have any working air conditioning, Charles Hook, San Antonio fire chief, said in a news briefing. “They were very hot to the touch. So these people were in this trailer without any signs of any type of water,” he said. “It was a mass casualty situation for us.”
A person from the lorry initially approached a Walmart employee in the parking lot and asked for water late Saturday night or early Sunday morning, William Mcmanus, a police chief, said. The employee gave the person the water and then called police, who found the dead and desperate migrants inside the lorry. Mcmanus said the driver was arrested, but he did not release their name.
Investigators checked store surveillance videos, which showed vehicles had arrived and picked up other people from the tractor-trailer, police said.
“We’re looking at a human trafficking crime this evening,” Mr Mcmanus said, adding many of those inside the lorry appeared to be adults in their twenties and thirties but that there were also what appeared to be two children of school age.
Investigators could be seen gathering evidence from the lorry on Saturday, hours after those who were inside – living and dead – were taken away. The trailer had an Iowa licence plate but no other markings. The lorry was parked at the side of the Walmart and the investigation did not appear to be interfering with commerce, as customers could be seen coming and going. The US Department of Homeland Security is assisting in the investigation.
Other cases of human trafficking in the US have involved deaths. In May 2003, 19 immigrants who were being transported from South Texas to Houston inside a sweltering tractor-trailer died. Prosecutors said the driver in that case heard the immigrants begging and screaming for their lives as they were succumbing to the stifling heat inside his lorry but refused to free them.
In 2011, the driver was sentenced to nearly 34 years in prison after a federal appeals court overturned the multiple life sentences he had earlier received.
In Mexico, smugglers have often crammed migrants bound for the United States into tractor-trailers, sometimes in hidden compartments. Authorities there have made a number of discoveries of large numbers of people being trafficked in such vehicles in dangerous conditions over the years.
Last December, Mexican immigration officials found 110 migrants trapped and suffocating inside a lorry after it crashed in the Gulf coast state of Veracruz. Some were injured in the crash, but there were no fatalities.