MEXICO CITY – A Mexican air force plane landed at an airport near Mexico City on Wednesday, bearing eight bodies of the 53 migrants who were found dead in a truck in Texas last month.
They were the first to be returned of the 26 Mexicans among those who died of heat and dehydration inside a locked truck trailer abandoned by smugglers on the outskirts of San Antonio on June 27. Temperatures that day approached 100 degrees Fahrenheit (38 degrees Celsius).
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Mexico's Foreign Affairs Ministry said in a statement Wedesday evening that the military plane was making a second trip to San Antonio on Wednesday to recover eight more victims. In total, the government planned to return the bodies of 25 of the 26 Mexican victims, in accordance with their families' wishes, the statement said.
Those who died in the truck included people from the states of Guanajuato, Veracruz, Oaxaca, Mexico, Zacatecas, Queretaro, Morelos and Mexico City.
Migrants from Honduras and Guatemala also were among those who died in the deadliest known smuggling attempt in the United States.
In 2017, 10 people died after being trapped inside a truck parked at a San Antonio Walmart. In 2003, the bodies of 19 migrants were found in a sweltering truck southeast of the city.