Six people found dead inside train car at rail yard near Texas-Mexico border

Rail workers in Texas found six people dead inside a boxcar at a yard close to the Mexican border on Sunday afternoon, officials said. The discovery was made by a Union Pacific employee inspecting the stopped train at the yard in Laredo before it continued its journey north, a spokesperson for the Laredo police department said, citing the railroad freight company. Authorities are working to establish a cause of death for the six, who were found at about 2.30pm local time on an afternoon when temperatures climbed above 90F (32C). Nobody was found alive in the boxcar, the spokesperson said. “It’s a very unfortunate event. It was too many lives that were lost,” Jose Espinoza, the department’s public information officer, told CNN , adding that the ages and immigration status of the deceased were not yet known The investigation, he said, was at a preliminary stage. US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) said it was aware of the incident, and referred questions to the Laredo police department and Texas Rangers. Sunday’s discovery has parallels in a 2024 episode in which 20 migrants locked inside a train compartment in Laredo were rescued in a dehydrated state by CBP officers. The Laredo Morning Times reported in 2024 that Laredo was the busiest port for international trade in the country, with an average of 12 trains per day entering from Mexico, bringing in almost 1,500 loaded containers between them. …