The office of Mexico’s attorney general says it has launched a criminal investigation into the head of the country’s immigration agency in connection with last month’s deadly fire at an immigrant detention facility.
A statement released late Tuesday night said National Immigration Institute (INM) chief Francisco Garduno failed to take steps to prevent the fire at the agency’s facility in the city of Ciudad Juarez that killed 40 migrants on March 27.
The attorney general’s office says the agency knew about problems at migrant detention facilities after a migrant was killed in a fire at another detention center in 2020.
Several other high-ranking officials of the INM are also under criminal investigation, but the statement did not specify what charges they are facing.
Earlier Tuesday, President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said the migrants were unable to escape the fire because the guards who had the keys to the cell door were absent.
Five people were arrested last month in connection with a homicide investigation into the blaze after video surveillance footage appeared to show guards doing nothing to help migrants escape the fire engulfing their cell.
Ciudad Juarez is a major crossing area for migrants or asylum-seekers wishing to enter the United States.
The dead and injured were from Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Venezuela, Colombia and Ecuador, with Guatemalans being the largest contingent, according to the attorney general’s office.
Authorities said one migrant is believed to be responsible for igniting the fire.
Some information for this report came from The Associated Press and Reuters.
