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MEXICAN authorities said on Wednesday that eight employees or officials were being investigated for possible misconduct at a migrant detention centre where a fire killed 39 detained men.
Officials in Mexico appeared to place blame for the deaths in the fire late on Monday largely on private, subcontracted security guards at the detention centre in Ciudad Juarez, across the border from El Paso, Texas.
Video showed guards hurrying away from the smoky fire apparently without trying to free detainees.
No charges were announced, but authorities said that they would seek at least four arrest warrants, including one for a migrant who was part of what they described as a small group that started the fire.
They said that a migrant also damaged a security camera inside the cell where the fire occurred.
Five of those under investigation for possible misconduct are private security guards, two are federal immigration agents and one is a Chihuahua state officer, federal Public Safety Secretary Rosa Icela Rodriguez said.
The investigation has centred on guards who appeared to make no effort to open cell doors for the detained men — almost all from Guatemala, Honduras, Venezuela and El Salvador — before smoke filled the room in a matter of seconds.
Immigration authorities said that they released 15 women when the fire broke out, but have not explained why no men were let out.
Leaked surveillance video allegedly shows migrants, reportedly fearing they were about to be moved, placing foam mattresses against the bars of their detention cell and setting them on fire.
In the video, later confirmed by the government, two people dressed as guards rushed into the camera frame and at least one migrant appears by the metal gate on the other side.
But the guards did not appear to make any effort to open the cell doors and instead hurry away as billowing clouds of smoke fill the structure within seconds.
It was unclear if the two actually had the keys, but authorities suggested on Wednesday that they should have got the detainees out or broken the lock.
