Mexico migration authority fires 8 officials for role in massacre

Mexico's migration authority said on Wednesday it had dismissed eight of its officials over their role in the massacre of 19 people in the northeastern state of Tamaulipas last month. In a brief statement, the National Migration Institute (INM) said it had discharged the eight due to "omissions in administrative procedures and protocols" linked to a burnt-out pick-up truck in which the dead people were found.

The same truck had come into the possession of authorities in December at the detention of 66 migrants in the neighboring state of Nuevo Leon. On Dec. 9 it was claimed by one of the men identified among the dead, a prosecutor said on Tuesday. It was not immediately clear how it came to be found torched at the scene of the massacre.

The INM announcement follows a decision by the Tamaulipas state attorney general's office to arrest 12 police officers on charges including homicide in connection with the killings. Authorities have so far identified two Guatemalans and two Mexicans among the 19, whose bodies were badly charred. Guatemalan families said they feared loved ones trying to migrate to the United States were among the dead.

The massacre has caused renewed consternation in Mexico about the perils faced by migrants, many of whom come from the three violent and impoverished Central American countries of Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador.

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