Tuxtala Guterrez: Mexico, “Don’t fall asleep, don’t close your eyes,” begged a victim to his friend who was seriously injured.
A few minutes before, a crowded truck carrying a scary migrant reversed on the highway in South Mexico, killing at least 53 people and injuring more dozens.
Sabina Lopez’s closest population ran to the scene after hearing a truck accident, which smuggled around 100 non-documented migrants, mostly Central Americans.
“Remember what you promised your mother! Wait,” Lopez heard the man begged his injured friend.
He saw dozens of screaming in pain, many were trapped in a ruined vehicle bed, others were unconscious and some were not hurt but hugging each other in fearless distrust.
“It was terrible to hear the lament.
I just thought about helping,” Lopez, 18, told AFP.
Shortly after the accident, the public prosecutor’s office confirmed the horror scale: 53 died in a collision and many more injured.
The report did not determine the nationality of the victims, but the regional authority said that most of them were Guatemala.
– The body on the highway – Lopez told AFP that the truck hit the wall and turned upside down so hard that the container broke half and the roof came out.
“Immigration officials arrived and told us to help take backpacks because they contained identification documents.
So we put them to one side, piled them up and they took it,” he said.
Officials took the role of rescuers, bringing the victims out of the ruins as well as possible.
They put people dead in a row on the asphalt and then covered them with white sheets.
“There are many people lying there, some of them are dead.
We help as many paramedics as we can with those who still have vital signs,” Isaias Diaz said, who arrived 15 minutes after the accident.
Some at the scene called emergency services in despair.
Others are involved in things that are inevitable: sorting dead people.
“I saw five, six children who were injured clearly.
People with broken legs, ribs, (injured) heads, cut their necks, everything,” said Diaz, shocked.
– ‘Crying, Pain, Despair’ – Other residents of El Refugio A neighborhood near the highway said that the driver and other people with him seemed injured, but then fled.
Human trafficking routinely transports migrants with trucks to Mexico, with the aim of reaching the country’s northern border with the United States.
The locals said they were surprised that the truck was speeding because there was a police checkpoint several kilometers from the tragedy.
“It’s terrible, really, crying, pain, despair.
It is a terrible scene,” Diaz added.
Some victims of entertainers, offer them water and cellphones to contact relatives.