In-focus

World

US police accused of killing Mexican near border

Dunya News

The victim's wife said they were celebrating her birthday in a park by the Bravo River.

Mexico charged Wednesday that US border police had fatally shot one of its citizens and demanded an investigation after the victims wife said they were celebrating her birthday near the border.The foreign ministry expressed its strong condemnation over the incident that took place on Monday at the border area separating the Mexican city of Nuevo Laredo and the Texas city of Laredo.The current information indicates that a Mexican citizen lost his life after being hit by a bullet from a US Border Patrol agent, the ministry said in a statement.The statement did not provide more details about the shooting and there was no immediate comment from US authorities.The victims wife told AFP that Guillermo Arevalo, a 36-year-old bricklayer, and their two daughters were celebrating her birthday in a park by the Bravo River, which separates the two countries, when he was shot in the chest.My husband fell wounded. We called an ambulance, but while they were asking what happened, I jumped into the car and took him to the hospital, Nora Lam said. But he died there.The Mexican consulate in Laredo formally requested that US authorities conduct an exhaustive investigation, the foreign ministry said.The Mexican government has repeatedly said that the disproportionate use of lethal force in migration control is unacceptable, it said. It is therefore fundamental to have a clear picture of what took place.In July, the Inter-American Human Rights Commission urged the United States to investigate whether US Border Patrol agents used excessive force in the shooting death of a Mexican youth near the international border bridge linking Matamoros, Mexico and Brownsville, Texas.In that shooting, the US Border Patrol said agents opened fire after rocks were thrown at them and they observed a person aiming a gun at them from the Mexican side.Another Mexican youth was killed in 2010 on the Mexican side of the border in Ciudad Juarez from shots fired by a US Border Patrol agent. A US judge rejected a Mexican extradition request in that case.