SAN ANTONIO (AP) — Forty-eight people died after being abandoned in a tractor-trailer in the sweltering Texas heat, one of the worst tragedies to claim the lives of migrants smuggled across the border from Mexico to the U.S. Sixteen people were hospitalized, including four children.
A city worker heard a cry for help from the truck on a lonely San Antonio back road shortly before 6 p.m. Monday and discovered the gruesome scene, Police Chief William McManus said. Hours later, body bags lay spread on the ground near the trailer and bodies remained inside as authorities responded to the calamity.
Forty-six people were found dead near the scene, authorities said, and two more people later died at a hospital, said Patti Tanner, a spokesperson at Baptist Health System in San Antonio.
San Antonio Mayor Ron Nirenberg said those who died had “families who were likely trying to find a better life.”
“This is nothing short of a horrific human tragedy,” Nirenberg said.
It’s among the deadliest of the tragedies that have claimed thousands of lives in recent decades as people attempt to cross the U.S. border from Mexico. Ten migrants died in 2017 after being trapped inside a truck parked at a Walmart in San Antonio. In 2003, the bodies of 19 migrants were found in a sweltering truck southeast of San Antonio.
https://apnews.com/article/politics-mexico-san-antonio-12d7431c008ea0123dfa9c271a27a3ca