Chilling video released in Mexico shows some guards at the migrant reception center leaving the area when they realize the fire has started and making no effort to save the victims. With the report so far 38 people have lost their lives.

After migrants at the Ciudad Juarez immigration detention center in northern Mexico, on the US border, placed mattresses on the door of their detention center and set them on fire, guards can be seen walking away impassively, security camera footage shows. The holding cell fills with smoke as the men desperately kick the bars of the locked door.

Twenty-eight people have been injured and are in serious condition, according to Mexico’s National Migration Institute. At the time of the fire, 68 men from Central and South America were being held at the facility, almost all of them from Guatemala, Honduras, Venezuela and El Salvador.

“Like Dogs”

Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador stated that, according to authorities, the fire broke out at around 21:30 (local time – 06:30 Greek time), after some migrants set fire to their mattresses to protest when they learned they would be deported. He did not specify why so many people were killed.

“They didn’t think they would cause this horrible tragedy,” López Obrador said during a press conference.

Mexican Interior Minister Adán Augusto Lopez in an interview appeared to confirm the authenticity of the video, noting that it came into the government’s possession shortly after the incident. However, he refrained from commenting on it.

Viangli, a Venezuelan citizen, said her 27-year-old husband was arrested during a police raid despite having legal documents and taken to the detention center where the fire broke out.

The young woman was anxiously trying to see inside an ambulance, complaining that detention center officials “don’t say anything.” “We are humans, we have feelings, they treat us like dogs.”