Mexico City, 7 March 2023 (dpa/MIA) - Mexican authorities on Monday said they found 343 migrants, including more than 100 unaccompanied minors, in an abandoned lorry in the south-eastern state of Veracruz on the Gulf of Mexico.

The country's migration authority said that the lorry was found on Sunday night abandoned near the community of Acayucan on the road connecting the cities of La Tinaja and Cosamaloapan.

Among the migrants were 103 unaccompanied minors, mostly from Guatemala, authorities said in a statement. In the trailer were also 212 adults from countries including Honduras, El Salvador and Ecuador.

The trailer had been modified to allow ventilation.

According to authorities the rescued individuals wore colourful bracelets, presumably to be identified by the smugglers.

Last year, more than 50 people believed to have been migrants were found dead in a parked lorry on the outskirts of the city of San Antonio in the US state of Texas. They had been left locked in the lorry's trailer in sweltering heat with no air conditioning.

Between October 2021 and October 2022, the US Border Protection Agency registered more than 2 million attempts by migrants to enter the United States. Most leave their homes because of poverty, political crises and crime.

Many people from crisis-ridden Central and South American countries, such as Haiti, Cuba and Venezuela, venture on the long, dangerous journey to the US through Mexico. Many migrants do not even reach the US border, but are stopped by Mexican soldiers and sent back.