Mexican authorities said they found 343 migrants, including over 100 unaccompanied minors, in an abandoned lorry in the south-eastern state of Veracruz on the Gulf of Mexico.

The country’s migration authority said in a statement on Monday that the lorry was found on Sunday night abandoned near the community of Acayucan on the road connecting the cities of La Tinaja and Cosamaloapan.

Among the migrants were 103 unaccompanied minors, mostly from Guatemala, authorities said.

The trailer also contained 212 adults from Honduras, El Salvador, and Ecuador.

The trailer had been modified to allow ventilation.

According to authorities, the rescued individuals wore colourful bracelets, presumably to be identified by the smugglers.

Last year, more than 50 people believed to have been migrants were found dead in a parked lorry on the outskirts of San Antonio in the U.S. state of Texas.

They had been left locked in the lorry’s trailer in sweltering heat with no air conditioning.

Between October 2021 and October 2022, the U.S. Border Protection Agency registered more than 2 million attempts by migrants to enter the United States.

Most leave their homes because of poverty, political crises, and crime.

Many people from crisis-ridden Central and South American countries, such as Haiti, Cuba, and Venezuela, venture on the long, dangerous journey to the U.S. through Mexico.

Many migrants do not even reach the U.S. border but are stopped by Mexican soldiers and sent back. 

(dpa/NAN)