After the migrants in northern Mexico placed mattresses against their cell bars and set them on fire, guards quickly moved away and made no attempt to free the men before smoke filled the room and killed at least 40 people, the AP reported, citing of surveillance camera video.

Hours after the fire broke out, rows of bodies were laid out, wrapped in silver foil, outside the migrant detention center in the city of Ciudad Juarez, which sits across the US border from El Paso, Texas, and is a major transit point. for migrants.

Twenty-nine people were injured and are in "serious" condition, Mexico's National Institute of Immigration said.

At the time of the fire, 68 men from Central and South America were in the facility, the agency added.

A fire at a migrant center in Mexico has killed more than 30 people

Footage from the recording shows two people dressed as security guards, and at least one migrant appears on the other side next to a metal door.

But the guards appear to make no effort to open the cell doors, instead fleeing as clouds of smoke fill the building within seconds.

Mexico's Interior Minister Adan Augusto Lopez confirmed the video's authenticity in an interview with a local journalist.

According to a statement from Mexico's attorney general's office, immigration authorities have identified the dead and injured as nationals of Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Venezuela, Colombia and Ecuador.

Guatemalan Foreign Affairs Minister Mario Bucaro said 28 of the dead were Guatemalan nationals.

Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said the fire was started by migrants in protest after learning they would be deported.