A Haitian refugee rights organization called for a full investigation after two Haitian girls, ages 4 and 5, were found dead in a septic tank at a migrant transit facility in southern Mexico in January 2025. The deaths were reported by GARR, the refugee rights group based in Port-au-Prince, which expressed outrage at the circumstances and called on Mexican authorities to conduct a thorough and transparent investigation.
Mexican authorities in Oaxaca state confirmed an investigation was underway and that two officials from the migrant center had been dismissed from their positions pending the inquiry. The deaths occurred at a facility that was part of the network of transit points used by Haitian migrants making the long journey northward through Central America and Mexico in search of safety or economic survival in the United States or Canada.
The deaths illustrated the extreme dangers facing Haitian migrants attempting irregular journeys through the Americas. The journey from Haiti to the United States through Central America and Mexico passed through multiple dangerous transit points, involved interactions with often predatory smuggling networks, and exposed migrants — particularly women and children — to risks of violence, exploitation, and death that the desperation of conditions in Haiti made them willing to accept.
Haitian diaspora organizations expressed grief and anger at the deaths, connecting them to the broader failure of the international community to address conditions in Haiti that were driving desperate migration. They argued that providing genuine protection and legal pathways for Haitians, rather than criminalizing migration and maintaining dangerous transit conditions, was both a humanitarian necessity and a legal obligation under international refugee law.