PRESIDENT Claudia Sheinbaum described the killing of six migrants when police opened fire on a lorry as “deplorable” on Thursday.

The vehicle was carrying migrants from half a dozen countries when the shooting happened last Tuesday.

Of the slain, three were from Egypt, one came from Peru and one from Honduras. The other has apparently not yet been identified. Authorities have not yet released their ages, but at least one may have been a child.

Ten other migrants were wounded in the shooting, but there was no immediate information on their conditions.

Peru’s Foreign Ministry confirmed that one Peruvian was killed and demanded “an urgent investigation” into the incident. 

President Sheinbaum said that the two soldiers who opened fire on Tuesday, her first day in office, had been turned over to civilian prosecutors for questioning, but apparently had not yet been charged. 

It was the worst killing of migrants by authorities in Mexico since police in the northern state of Tamaulipas killed 17 in 2021.

She said that the shootings were being investigated to see if any commanders might face punishment, and noted “a situation like this cannot be repeated.”

The  incident occurred near the city of Tapachula, in the southern state of Chiapas, near the border with Guatemala, Mexico’s Defence Department said on Wednesday in a statement.

The department initially said that soldiers claimed to have heard shots as a convoy of three trucks passed the soldiers’ position.

The Attorney General’s Office later said that all three trucks ignored orders to stop and tried to flee. The soldiers pursued them and reported coming under fire from the convoy and returned fire.

But Irineo Mujica, a migrant rights activist, said that he doubted the migrants or their smugglers opened fire.

“It is really impossible that these people would have been shooting at the army. Most of the time, they get through by paying bribes,” Mr Mujica said