652 overcrowded migrants are intercepted in trucks in Mexico, 355 of them minors.

MEXICO CITY - Mexican authorities intercepted 652 migrants, 355 of them minors , who were transported in three trucks on a highway in the northeastern state of Tamaulipas, official sources reported this Friday.

Migrants of various nationalities, including women and children, were crammed into three trailers with double containers , detailed a statement from the State Coordination Group for the Construction of Peace in Tamaulipas.

According to the bulletin, military and National Guard personnel detected the vehicles on Thursday night at a Mexican Army checkpoint located at kilometer 53 of the Ciudad Victoria-Monterrey highway, in the municipality of Hidalgo.

So far the authorities have been able to detect that 564 migrants were from Guatemala , 39 from Honduras, 20 from El Salvador, 28 from Nicaragua and one from Belize.

According to reports, there were at least 197 minors traveling alone .

According to the first investigations, the migrants traveled from the central state of Puebla, bound for Monterrey, Nuevo León.

The authorities arrested four people allegedly involved in the event.

While the vehicles were transferred to the Tamaulipas Public Security Secretariat Complex in Ciudad Victoria, so that authorities of the National Migration Institute (INM) and the Attorney General's Office (FGR) can carry out the accounting of the migrants.

Meanwhile, Mexican Red Cross personnel went to the facilities of the Security Complex to provide medical assistance to those who requested it.

Now, the authorities of the INM and the FGR are working to determine the immigration status of the intercepted persons , as well as the legal status of the four detainees.

The region has registered a historical migratory flow in recent months with 147,000 undocumented persons detected in the country from January to August, triple that of 2020, and a record of 212,000 undocumented persons detained in July alone by the Customs and Border Protection (CBP, in English) from the United States.

Just this Tuesday, a total of 103 Central American migrants, including 38 minors, were detained by agents of the INM of Mexico at a checkpoint in the state of Tabasco, southeast of the country, according to the immigration institution itself.