Customs officials have rescued dozens of migrants found gasping for water by abandoned lorries close to Mexico’s border with the USA.

Moving images shows the exhausted 129 migrants – including women and children – being checked by border guards.

Officials said 10 Ecuador nationals, 24 Hondurans, 45 Guatemalans and 50 people from El Salvador had been in the back of the lorries.

They said there were 25 women, 42 men, plus 26 girls and 36 boys.

Newsflash obtained a statement from the National Institute of Migration of Mexico (INM) and the National Guard of Mexico dated 20th March saying that the incident took place on the Cadereyta-Reynosa highway, in the municipality of China in Nuevo Leon, in north-eastern Mexico.

They said they had “rescued 129 migrants who were travelling in overcrowded conditions, coming from Central and South America.”

Border police found the group and the two abandoned lorries on a dirt road in the municipality of China, in Nuevo Leon, in north-eastern Mexico.

The migrants said they had been waiting there for hours after the human traffickers driving the lorries left them to fend for themselves.

The INM said: “First aid and water were immediately provided to people; At the same time, civil protection support was requested to care for 16 of them who presented symptoms of dehydration.

“When requiring identification that accredited their legal stay in Mexico, they did not have the corresponding documentation.”

Officials said the migrants were taken to an INM centre to determine their immigration status.