Seven Killed In US As Car Hits Migrants

By Stefan J. Bos, Chief International Correspondent Worthy News

BROWNSVILLE,  USA (Worthy News) – Seven people have been killed in the U.S. state of Texas after a car struck a group at a bus stop near a homeless shelter that accommodates migrants near Mexico, officials said Sunday.

Sunday’s car crash incident happened in the city of Brownsville near the Mexican border at about 8:30 local time, authorities said.

The driver has been arrested and charged, Brownsville police said, adding that it was not clear whether the incident was intentional. However, earlier U.S. media quoted police as saying it appeared to be a deliberate attack amid mounting tensions over the massive influx of migrants, many fleeing strife and poverty.

Sunday’s accident came as Texas was still reeling from Saturday’s mass shooting at a mall in the Dallas suburb of Allen that killed at least eight people and injured several more.

At least six other people were reportedly injured in the car crash on a Sunday, some of them critically, authorities said.

The director of the nearby Bishop Enrique San Pedro Ozanam Center, Victor Maldonado, said surveillance footage showed a sport utility vehicle that “ran the light that was about a hundred feet away and just went through the people who were sitting there in the bus stop.”

VENEZUELAN MEN

He told the Associated Press that most of the victims were Venezuelan men.

The male driver who hit them was charged with reckless driving and could face additional charges, said Lieutenant Martin Sandoval of the Brownsville Police Department.

The city of Brownsville, on the border with Mexico, is one of the places expecting an influx of migrants when COVID-era restrictions under measures known as Title 42” expire Thursday.

The Ozanam shelter is the only overnight shelter in the city and manages the release of thousands of migrants from federal custody, officials said.

Maldonado said his center had not received any threats before the crash, but they did afterward.

“I’ve had a couple of people come by the gate and tell the security guard that the reason this happened was because of us,” Maldonado said in published remarks.

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