5 National Guard Officers in Mexico Hurt After Hundreds of Migrants Hurl Rocks
Five officers of Mexico's National Guard were injured after a group of migrants attempting to walk across southern Mexico pelted them with a hail of rocks.
According to ABC News, the Mexican national guards were tailing the march and were trying to detain a number of mostly Central American migrants when a group of male migrants, estimated at 100 to 150 in numbers, started to attack them.
5 Mexico's National Guards Injured After They Were Attacked by Migrants
The migrants reportedly threw rocks at two truckloads of National Guard officers equipped with plastic shields and helmets.
Despite having protective gears, the Mexican National Guard said in a statement that four male officers and one female officer suffered injuries and were hospitalized. The Guard noted that the officers did not respond to the attack.
The rain of rocks was reportedly heavy that at least two officers tumbled from the trucks onto the highway close to the town of Pijijiapan in the southern state of Chiapas.
The national guards tried to protect themselves from the rocks showering towards them but to no avail. Video footage showed that one of the guardsmen was unconscious. Some of the migrants tried to help the officer, but another even threw a punch at him.
Mexico's National Guard officers have been wary of confronting migrants after the shooting incident on Sunday that left one migrant dead.
Mexico's National Guards Shoot Truck Carrying Migrants
Clashes between law enforcement and migrants had been relatively rare in Mexico, but National Guard officers reportedly opened fire on a pickup truck carrying migrants on Sunday.
A Cuban migrant was shot dead, and four others were wounded after the vehicle they were in tried to avoid an immigration checkpoint in Chiapas. The Guard said the pickup truck had attempted to ram a Guard vehicle.
Mexico's President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador later said the shooting was unjustified. He said the pickup, allegedly driven by a migrant trafficker, has simply tried to run past the checkpoint, not ram the patrol vehicle.
The National Guard officers involved in the shooting are now subject to a federal criminal investigation.
The migrants inside the truck were reportedly not part of about 4,000 mainly Central Americans seeking to reach Mexico City on foot. The shooting incident occurred some 40 kilometers from where the march was at the time.
The Mexican government discouraged migrants from marching towards the U.S., saying the poor conditions put the migrants' lives at risk. According to the National Immigration Institute, six cases of the tropical fever dengue had already been detected among the migrants.
This article is owned by Latin Post.
Written by: Jess Smith
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