Fifty-six people died in the tragedy in Chiapas, Mexico, where a trailer crashed into a pedestrian bridge on the 9th of December. In addition, 62 of the 160 people in the trailer have been hospitalised.
The Justice and Peace Commission of the Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer, Province of Mexico, has written a communiqué which we publish in full:
On the 9th of December on the Tuxtla Gutiérrez to Chiapa de Corzo highway, unfortunately, more than 50 migrant brothers and sisters died because the trailer (in terrible conditions) in which they were travelling suffered an accident and the misfortune occurred. This accident shows the result of the different repressive policies against our migrant brothers and sisters. They put their integrity and even their lives at risk due to the deplorable conditions in which they have to look for different forms of mobility.
With this communiqué, we want to sensitise our entire Redemptorist province, congregates and laity, to show solidarity with the complex reality of migration in the interior of our country, and also to join in the pain of the families of the victims, and to pray for the eternal rest of these brothers and sisters who have died as a result of the migration that is taking place internally in Mexico. We also pray for so many of whom we do not know, but who lose their lives on national territory, under different conditions, but with the reality of migratory transit, in the hope of being able to cross our country or stay in it, to have a more conspicuous future.
That is why we have asked this Sunday 12, on the feast of the Virgin Mary in her invocation of Guadalupe, the third Sunday of Advent, at the end of each Eucharist, praying a Hail Mary for these intentions.
On the other hand, we ask the competent authorities, from the national executive to the national migration commission, to do three things: Firstly, to pay attention to these problems so that they can safeguard the life and dignity of all people, nationals and foreigners, who live the reality of migration within our country. Secondly, to generate migration policies that favour these brothers and sisters, guarantee respect for their human rights and help to ensure their safety. Thirdly, that the families of the victims can have the return of the bodies of their deceased, as this will have to generate the identification of the deceased, the joint collaboration of the public prosecutor’s office and consular representations of the countries of origin of the victims, and the investigation into the causes of the accident and the clarification of responsibilities.
May God bless our migrant brothers and sisters in their transit through our country, may he sensitise those responsible for creating policies in their favour and carry them out, and may he place on their paths many people of solidarity, and among those us, so that we can help them in their transit and be good Samaritans for them.
Justice and Peace Commission
Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer, Province of Mexico.
