Migrants' fire deaths: Mexican president vows 'no impunity'

Mexico's president vowed Wednesday there would be "no impunity" for those found responsible for the death by fire of 38 migrants at a detention center.

"We will not hide anything and there will be no impunity," Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said at his daily press briefing after the disaster at a detention center near the border late Monday.

Those found to have been responsible for "causing this painful tragedy will be punished in conformity with the law," he said.

A fire believed to have been started by migrants protesting against their deportation killed at least 38 people in Ciudad Juarez.

Twenty-eight others were injured.

The group included people from Guatemala, Honduras, Venezuela, El Salvador, Colombia and Ecuador, Mexican authorities said.

Video surveillance footage, broadcast by several media outlets and authenticated by a government minister, appeared to show guards at the detention center leaving as flames engulfed a cell with migrants trapped inside.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called for a "thorough investigation."

Ciudad Juarez, which neighbors El Paso, Texas, is one of the border towns where numerous undocumented migrants seeking refuge in the United States remain stranded.

About 200,000 people try to cross the border from Mexico into the United States each month, most of them fleeing poverty and violence in Central and South America.

ALSO READ:

• 29 killed in arrest of Mexico drug kingpin's son

• World