126 mainly Haitian migrants attempting to get to the US were abandoned in a locked shipping container

• 126 migrants attempting to get to the US were abandoned in a shipping container in Guatemala.
• After locals heard screams and shouts, they were rescued, BBC News reported.

Police in Guatemala found and freed 126 migrants abandoned in a locked shipping container.

They were discovered by the side of a road between the towns of Nueva Concepción and Cocales after locals heard screaming and shouting from inside the container, the BBC reported.

"We heard cries and knocks coming from inside the container. We opened the doors and found inside 126 undocumented people," a police spokesperson said, as per the BBC.

It's believed the migrants were left on the side of the road by smugglers paid to take them to the US via Mexico.

Local police tweeted that the majority of the people inside were from Haiti, plus 11 from Nepal and nine from Ghana. They were given medical assistance before being taken to a shelter run by the Guatemalan Migration Institute.

The migrants had first arrived in Honduras with the intention of traveling to the US, Guatemala's migration authority spokesperson Alejandra Mena said, and will be taken back to the Honduras border and left with authorities.

Thousands of Haitian migrants have been attempting to reach the US by taking treacherous journeys through Central America and Mexico.

The fatal earthquake that hit the Caribbean island in August 2021, a month after the assassination of President Jouvenal Moïse in July, and following years of instability, have made many Haitians desperate to leave.

The Biden administration is facing a backlash for its treatment of Haitian migrants at the US border, as Insider's Christine Jean-Baptiste reported.