Mother pleads for help in harrowing video from Mexico detention centre: 'My son is dying'

‘They haven’t given us a bit of food. There is no drinkable water. I have suffered a lot’

Harrowing footage shows a migrant mother begging for help for her sick child after riots broke out at a Mexico detention centre.

The mother-of-two, from Haiti, lies in the dirt on the ground as she cries for help for her “dying son” through a gap beneath a fence.

The unnamed woman, whose has a five-year-old and 14-month-old son, claims they have suffered without food or drinkable water at Feria Mesoamericana centre in Tapachula, where they have been for 10 days.

In video footage released by Mexican outlet El Universal, the woman says through tears: “My son has been sick for a lot of days. I have suffered a lot.

“They haven’t given us a bit of food. There is no drinkable water.

“Help me, help me with my son. He is sick. My son is dying.”

Speaking in Spanish, the mother reaches her hand out towards reporters on the other side of the fence as she pleads for “justice”.

Hundreds of Haitian and African refugees rioted on Tuesday and tried to escape from the makeshift immigration centre in southern Mexico.

A mother-of-two, from Haiti, begs for help for her sick son from Feria Mesoamericana immigration detention centre in Tapachula, southern Mexico. (Maria de Jesus Peters/El Universal)

It was the third uprising in a month, sparked by refugees demanding food, medical attention and help with their processing which would allow them to leave.

Guards and police officers reportedly stopped people from leaving the centre, which is the biggest in the country.

The National Institute of Immigration dismissed the riot as just a “disturbance” at the facility, according to EFE news agency.

A haunting image of a father and his 23-month-old daughter lying face down in the Rio Grande after they drowned attempting to cross from Mexico into the US on Sunday sparked outrage.

Oscar Alberto Martinez Ramirez, 25, can be seen lying among reeds and empty beer cans with his daughter Valeria tucked into his black T-shirt with her right arm draped around his neck.

It triggered outcry after further highlighting the plight faced by Central American migrants hoping to claim asylum in America.