More than a day after the gruesome discovery of 53 dead migrants in a stifling big rig in San Antonio, Texas, few identities of the victims have been made public, illustrating the challenges authorities are facing in tracing people who cross borders clandestinely.
According to Bexar County Commissioner Rebeca Clay-Flores, representing the district where the truck was abandoned, medical examiners had potentially identified 34 victims by Tuesday afternoon.
The identities of those victims have yet to be confirmed, pending additional steps, such as fingerprints, according to NBC News. Clay-Flores described it as a challenge with no timeline on when the process might be finished. She told reporters that it is a tedious, sad, and difficult process.
Children among the victims in deadliest human smuggling case in U.S. history
The bodies were discovered on the outskirts of San Antonio on Monday afternoon in what is believed to be the country's deadliest smuggling episode at the U.S.-Mexico border. More than a dozen people found in the truck were taken to hospitals, including four children. Three people have been arrested in connection with the human smuggling case.
The unfortunate tragedy occurred at a time when huge numbers of migrants have been coming to the United States, many of them taking dangerous risks to cross scorching desert landscapes and swift rivers and canals. Migrants were stopped nearly 240,000 times in May, up by a third from a year ago, according to CBS News.
With little information being released about the victims, desperate families of migrants from Central America and Mexico frantically sought word of their loved ones. According to Rubén Minutti, the Mexico consul general in San Antonio, 27 dead migrants found in the truck are believed to be of Mexican origin based on the documents they were carrying.
Migrants came from Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador
He added that several survivors were in critical condition with injuries such as internal bleeding and brain damage. Officials said about 30 people had already reached out to the Mexican Consulate looking for their loved ones.
Guatemala's foreign ministry announced late on Tuesday that it had confirmed two hospitalized Guatemalans and was working to identify three possible Guatemalans among the dead migrants. Honduras' foreign relations ministry said it was also working to confirm the identities of four people who carried Honduran papers that died in the truck.
According to Eva Ferrufino, spokeswoman for Honduras' foreign ministry, her agency is working with the Honduras consulate in south Texas to match the names and fingerprints of the victims and complete identifications. The process is painstaking because among the pitfalls are stolen or fake documents.
Mexico's foreign affairs secretary identified two people hospitalized in San Antonio on Tuesday morning, but it turned out that one of the identification cards he shared on Twitter had been stolen last year in the southern state of Chiapas in Mexico.
The suspected driver of the truck and an accused conspirator was charged in the U.S. federal court with human trafficking offenses on Wednesday, June 29, according to Reuters.
