Seven Mexicans were among the 10 migrants who suffocated in an overcrowded, sweltering truck smuggling them into the United States, Mexico said today, up from an initial figure of four.
The Mexican foreign ministry said it had confirmed that at least 34 Mexicans were being transported in the truck, whose driver was arrested after the horrific scene was discovered Sunday at a Walmart parking lot in San Antonio, Texas.
Twenty-seven Mexicans remain hospitalized after the ordeal, it said in a statement, warning others trying to reach the US of "the high risk of resorting to human trafficking networks."
The Mexican government is working to repatriate victims' remains and help families whose loved ones are hospitalized travel to the US to visit them, it added.
As many as 200 migrants may have been crammed into the trailer, US authorities say. Many fled in SUVs that were waiting in the parking lot, according to witness accounts.
Survivors have told of taking turns breathing through a tiny air hole to stay alive as the driver, Florida trucker James Mathew Bradley Jr -- who says he did not know what his cargo was -- forged ahead despite the migrants pounding on the trailer walls.
One migrant who died in the tragedy was a 20-year-old Guatemalan, the government there has confirmed.
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