Mexico City: Six would-be migrants, mostly from Asia and the Middle East have died after Mexican soldiers fired on a group of 33 people travelling in a ute that had tried to evade a military patrol, the Defence Ministry said, underlining tensions on Mexico’s southern border as it faces US pressure to contain migration.

Another 10 were injured in the incident. The group included people of Egyptian, Nepalese, Cuban, Indian and Pakistani nationality, though the statement did not specify the nationalities of the deceased.

The ministry said the incident took place just in the evening on Tuesday while the patrol travelled on a highway near the town of Huixtla, some 40km from Tapachula, on the Guatemalan border.

The ute was followed by two vehicles similar to those used by criminal groups in the area, it said, and soldiers reported hearing explosions after which two officers opened fire.

Four migrants were killed at the scene while two others died later in hospital.

The deaths shine a renewed spotlight on Mexico’s policy towards migrants as well as the growing role of the military in the country’s security.

“These events are neither accidental nor isolated, they are a consequence of the restrictive immigration policies that the Mexican state continues to implement,” the Collective for the Monitoring of the Southern Border, a grouping of advocacy and civil society organisations, said.

Mexico has been pressured by the United States to reduce the number of migrants arriving at their shared border, where record numbers of people have tried to cross for years, fleeing economic hardship and violence.