GUATEMALA CITY (AP) \u2014 The bodies of four migrants killed in a Dec. 9 truck crash in southern Mexico have been returned to their homeland, Guatemala.<\/b>
\nGUATEMALA CITY (AP) \u2014 The body of Guatemalan migrant Daniel Arnulfo P\u00e9rez Uxla was laid out for the memorial service Sunday in his hometown of Tejar, in the highland province of Chimaltenango. P\u00e9rez Uxla was one of four migrants killed in a Dec.9 truck crash in southern Mexico whose bodies were returned to their homeland Saturday. A total of 56 migrants died when a people smugglers\u2019 semi-trailer truck jammed with migrants overturned on a highway. P\u00e9rez Uxla was a 41-year-old ironworker who left for the United States in hopes of paying off a mortgage on his home, after losing his job during the coronavirus pandemic. His coffin was surrounded by white and yellow flowers and candles at his tin-roofed home. He left behind a wife and three children. His wife, Mariela de P\u00e9rez, said he would be buried immediately Sunday. \u201cI don\u2019t want to prolong the agony for everyone, especially for my children,\u201d she said. His and three other migrants\u2019 bodies arrived on a charter flight from Mexico on Saturday and were taken in hearses to their hometowns for burial. The other three victims were from San Marcos province, on the border with Mexico. They were identified as Leonel Estuardo G\u00f3mez Zepeda, Daymen Erick Fuentes Bravo, Cecilio Federico Ovalle Cifuentes. Most of the 56 victims were believed to be from Guatemala, Honduras and the Dominican Republic. De P\u00e9rez still had hopes of finding her husband alive, and she travelled to Mexico after word spread about the accident. After looking in all the hospitals in the Mexican city of Tuxtla Gutierrez, she finally found him in the last place she had wanted to go: the morgue. \u201cI found him two days after I arrived, in the morgue,\u201d she said. De P\u00e9rez then went to the curve in the highway where the crash occurred, to light a candle for her husband. \u201cI am not Catholic, but my in-laws are, and I know they would have wanted me to light a candle at the spot where he died,\u201d she said. Assistant Foreign Minister Eduardo Hern\u00e1ndez said that so far six of the dead have been identified as Guatemalan citizens, and there is reason to believe 14 more are also Guatemalans. Authorities say fingerprints have been used to identify the bodies, as well as relatives\u2019 identification of their loved ones through photographs. More than 100 migrants were injured in the crash. Some remain hospitalized in Mexico. The truck was packed with as many as 250 migrants, and survivors said that speed and weight of the human cargo may have played a role in the crash. Copyright \u00a9 2021 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, written or redistributed.<\/p>\n