An anonymous emergency telephone call on Friday led authorities to halt a train that contained a group of "suffocating" migrants, two of whom were dead, police in Texas said.
The US Border Patrol stopped the train east of Knippa, a small community in southern Texas near the city of San Antonio, police said.
"Approximately 15 migrants were discovered to be in need of immediate medical attention, five of the immigrants were flown out to San Antonio area hospitals, five were transported to area hospitals, and their conditions are unknown," the statement by the Uvalde Police Department said.
"Two of the immigrants were pronounced deceased."
Police said that Union Pacific, a freight-hauling railroad company, "will lead the investigation."
Temperatures near where the train was stopped reached 87 degrees Fahrenheit (30 degrees Celsius) in the late afternoon, according to KSAT.com, an affiliate of ABC TV in San Antonio.
Members of the police work, after two migrants suffocated to death aboard a freight train that got derailed, in Uvalde, Texas, US, March 24, 2023, in this screengrab obtained from a social media video. (Joey Palacios via REUTERS)
