At least 39 migrants from Central and South America died when a fire broke out late yesterday, Monday, at a migrant reception center in the city of Ciudad Juarez on the northern border of Mexico, as the National Migration Institute (INM) announced today.

In a statement, the INM reported that 68 adult men from Central and South America they resided in this unit in the city across the street from El Paso, Texas and that 29 of them were injured in the fire and were transferred to four area hospitals.

A Reuters eyewitness saw body bags lined up and confirmed that the fire, the cause of which remains under investigation, has been extinguished. Many of the immigrants in the unit were from Venezuela, according to a Reuters eyewitness.

Mexico’s attorney general’s office has launched an investigation and sent investigators to the scene, according to local media reports.

Local news site Norte Digital reported that many of the victims were found in the toilets of the detention center, where inmates are believed to have sought refuge from the flames.

Mexico

The fire, one of the country’s deadliest in years, comes as the US and Mexico battle to deal with record levels of border crossings on their shared border.

Recent weeks have seen a spike in the number of migrants arriving in Mexican border towns as authorities try to process asylum claims using a new US government application known as CBP One.

Many migrants feel the process is taking too long, and earlier this month hundreds of migrants, mostly from Venezuela, clashed with US border police officers frustrated by delays in processing their asylum applications.

In January, the Biden administration announced it would extend Trump-era restrictions on the expedited deportation of immigrants from Cuba, Nicaragua and Haiti caught illegally crossing the US-Mexico border in an effort to stem the flow of migrants.

At the same time, the US announced that it would allow up to 30,000 people from these three countries plus Venezuela to enter the country by air each month.