MEXICO CITY (AP) — Three migrants were killed and 17 were injured Thursday when they were hit by a vehicle on a highway in Mexico’s southern state of Oaxaca, authorities said.

Officials confirmed that two of the dead — an adult and a child — were from Nicaragua. Oaxaca state prosecutors said they were a father and his 8-year-old daughter.

A woman from Ecuador was also killed. There was no immediate information on the condition of those injured in the accident.

Oaxaca is a key route for migrants seeking to cross Mexico to reach the U.S. border, and accidents involving migrants there are common.

The deaths happened early Thursday on a two-lane highway near the city of Juchitan, Oaxaca. Groups of migrants frequently walk along the sides of highways in southern Mexico in the pre-dawn darkness to avoid the scorching daytime heat.

Police patrol vehicles sometimes accompany large groups of migrants walking on highways to try to prevent such accidents. It was not clear why the group hit Thursday did not have such protection, and immigrant rights activists criticized police for not preventing the deaths.

The state prosecutor’s office said one man, apparently the driver of the vehicle, had been detained and could face charges equivalent to vehicular manslaughter.

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In April, three migrants died in a highway accident in Oaxaca state. At least two of the dead were from the African nation of Cameroon.

In March, the bodies of eight Asian migrants were found after a boat accident along Oaxaca’s Pacific coast.

One survivor was located. The bodies were found near a beach in the town of Playa Vicente, which is about 250 miles (400 kilometers) east of Mexico’s border with Guatemala.

In 2023, at least 16 migrants from Venezuela and Haiti died in a bus crash in Oaxaca.

There has been a series of migrant deaths in Mexico amid a surge in migrants traveling toward the U.S. border. Because migration agents often raid regular buses, some migrants seek to make the journey on foot.

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