18 migrants killed in Mexico bus crash

A bus carrying migrants overturned in southern Mexico on Friday, leaving at least 18 passengers dead and 27 injured, authorities said – the latest fatal road crash involving US-bound migrants.

The dead, three of them minors, were from Venezuela and Haiti, according to a statement from the prosecutor's office in Oaxaca state.

The accident happened at around dawn on a highway linking Oaxaca and the neighbouring state of Puebla, it said.

The injured were taken to hospital for treatment, it added.

Images released by state authorities showed the wreckage of the bus lying on its side on a highway winding through hills.

Thousands of migrants from different countries have been travelling across Mexico in buses, overcrowded trailers and atop freight trains in an attempt to reach the US-Mexican border.

More than 8,200 migrants have died or disappeared in the Americas since 2014, most of them while trying to reach the United States via Mexico, according to the International Organization for Migration.

On Sunday, at least 10 Cuban migrants were killed and 25 injured when a cargo truck carrying them overturned in the southern state of Chiapas.

In early August, at least 18 people died and 23 were injured after a bus carrying local passengers and migrants from countries such as India, the Dominican Republic and some African nations plunged into a ravine in the state of Nayarit.

On Thursday, senior US and Mexican officials pledged to redouble their efforts to tackle irregular migration through measures such as modernizing border security, increasing legal avenues and addressing the root causes.

The two countries were committed to expanding "safe, orderly and lawful pathways for migrants" but with "strict consequences" for those who enter the United States illegally, US Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said after the talks in Mexico City.

/KN/