Associated Press

TUXTLA GUTIERREZ, Mexico – Police rescued 83 illegal migrants Friday from the hidden compartment of a cramped, sweltering cargo truck carrying animal feed through southern Mexico.

At a roadblock near the Guatemalan border, the panicked migrants alerted officers to their presence by screaming and banging on the walls of the truck, Mexican immigration agent Mario Lopez said.

Lopez said the migrants were dehydrated, bruised and scraped. He said 76 were from Guatemala, five from El Salvador and two from Brazil.

Earlier this week, 54 illegal migrant workers from Myanmar suffocated in the back of an unventilated truck in Thailand.

In Mexico, the truck's driver and his assistant were detained on suspicion of migrant smuggling.

Many Central American migrants travel across Mexico in dangerous conditions en route to the United States. More than 120,000 were detained here in 2007, according to Mexico's National Migration Institute.