International Desk : At least 16 migrants have been killed on Friday in a bus crash in southern Mexico, authorities said.

Read more : Death toll rises to 40

Mexico’s National Immigration Institute initially said 18 dead, but later lowered that figure. Prosecutors in the southern state of Oaxaca later said there had been an overcount due to some of the bodies being dismembered, and that the real death toll was 16.

Sources said the dead include two women and three children, and that 29 people were injured. There was no immediate information on their condition.

Read more : Narges wins Nobel Peace Prize

Photos from the scene showed the bus rolled over onto its side on a curvy section of highway in the southern state of Oaxaca. The cause of the crash in the town of Tepelmeme, near the border with the neighboring state of Puebla, is under investigation.

The institute said a total of 55 migrants, mostly from Venezuela, were aboard the vehicle.

Read more : 49 killed in Russian attack

It was the latest in a series of migrant deaths in Mexico amid a surge in migrants traveling toward the U.S. border. Because migration agents often raid regular buses, migrants and smugglers often seek out risky forms of transportation, like unregulated buses, trains or freight trucks.

Last week, 10 Cuban migrants died and 17 others were seriously injured after a freight truck they were riding in crashed on a highway in the neighboring state of Chiapas, near the border with Guatemala.

Read more : Jon Fosse wins Nobel in Literature

Last week, a truck flipped over on a highway in Chiapas, killing two Central American migrants and injuring another 27. And two Central American migrants died last week after trying to board a moving train in the state of Coahuila near the Texas border.

Sun News/MR

migrants killed bus Mexico crash

Copyright © Sunnews24x7

Tweet

60 killed in migrant boat capsize

Five killed in road accidents

Four die as road crash sparks fire

18 died in Mexico bus crash