Video shows guards walking away from Mexico migrant centre fire that killed 38

Venezuelan sisters comfort each other outside the immigration detention centre in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico (Fernando Llano/AP)

Guards at a detention centre in northern Mexico walked away when migrants placed mattresses against the bars of their cell and set them on fire, surveillance video has shown.

Staff at the immigration detention facility in Ciudad Juarez, which is across the US border from El Paso, Texas, and a major crossing point for migrants, made no apparent attempt to release the men before smoke filled the room and killed 38 of them, the footage shows.