Author: Carlos Rosado van der Gracht

A night of celebration in Mexico City turned into tragedy as an estimated 1.2 million people gathered at the iconic Angel de la Independencia to celebrate the national team’s World Cup victory over Ecuador. 

The massive crowd, which overwhelmed the streets of Paseo de la Reforma and the surrounding areas, resulted in the deaths of four people. Mexico City authorities have since confirmed the fatalities and are now working to implement new safety measures ahead of future matches.

The victims included two women, aged 19 and 48, and a 44-year-old man, all of whom died from asphyxiation. A fourth victim, a man approximately 30 years old, was hospitalized after suffering an epileptic seizure and gastrointestinal bleeding in the middle of the crowd. He later died from cardiorespiratory arrest. 

Emergency responders found three of the victims unconscious on side streets near the monument, including at the intersections of Hamburgo and Lancaster streets and on Berna Street. Despite immediate medical attention, they could not be revived.

The Mexico City Attorney General’s Office has opened four investigation files into the deaths. The primary line of investigation suggests that the massive crowding causes physical failures. Witnesses described a chaotic scene in which the crowd surged forward after a chant of “nadaremos” (we will swim) spread through the gathering. 

The movement created a bottleneck on Lancaster Street, where people began pushing, and several fell to the ground. Fireworks after the game also prompted a brief panic, causing people to run and fall in crowded side streets. 

In total, emergency services attended to more than 1,600 people, with 28 requiring hospital transport for contusions, fractures, alcohol intoxication, and anxiety attacks.

The victory that sparked these celebrations was significant for Mexican fans. Mexico’s 2-0 win over Ecuador secured the team’s place in the Round of 16 of the 2026 FIFA World Cup. 

Goals from Julián Quiñones and Raúl Jiménez ignited a wave of euphoria that sent hundreds of thousands into the streets. The Angel of Independence has long served as the traditional gathering point for major sporting victories in Mexico City, and the prospect of advancing in the World Cup drew an unprecedented crowd.

The fervor was not limited to the capital. Across Mexico, cities erupted in celebration, and other unfortunate events occurred. In some locations, the combination of alcohol, fireworks, and overcrowding led to additional injuries and incidents. 

The scale of the gatherings overwhelmed local infrastructure in multiple cities, highlighting a national pattern of inadequate crowd management during high-stakes sporting events.

In response to the tragedy, Mexico City Mayor Clara Brugada announced the immediate reinforcement of Civil Protection, Security, and Health protocols. 

The city government is developing a new protocol that will include additional protection measures, security operations, and communication campaigns to discourage attendance when an area reaches capacity. 

The mayor has made clear that celebrations will not be suspended, arguing that the Angel of Independence is a symbol of sports celebrations and that people will naturally gather there.

Instead of closing the monument, the strategy focuses on greater decentralization of gatherings. The city plans to install additional screens and create free spaces at various points across the city to prevent crowds from congregating in a single location. 

Mayor Brugada explained that installing barriers could generate greater risks by provoking confrontations between attendees and security forces. She has also called on citizens to celebrate responsibly, avoid excesses, moderate alcohol consumption, and follow authorities’ instructions.

Federal Deputy Laura Ballesteros has proposed implementing an occupancy traffic light system in public spaces where events are held. The system would allow people to make informed decisions about whether to enter an area based on green, yellow, or red capacity indicators. Ballesteros argued that the tragedy could have been prevented with proper planning and risk management, noting that the increase in attendance was a gradual and entirely predictable scenario. 

She has also called for transparency regarding the number of Civil Protection elements, ambulances, and medical units that were available during the celebrations.

The city government has provided support to the families of the deceased, including financial assistance for funeral expenses. Mexico is now preparing for its next World Cup match against England.

The Mexican government has granted an extension to the mandatory mobile phone registration process, walking back previous assurances that July 1 would be the definitive cutoff date. 

The decision, announced by the Comisión Reguladora de Telecomunicaciones (CRT) on June 25, comes as official figures show that less than half of the country’s active mobile lines have been successfully registered.

The Extension and Its Staggered Timeline

The extension is not a blanket postponement but rather a staggered schedule that assigns different deadlines based on the last digit of each mobile number.

The complete schedule is as follows: digit 0 by August 15; digit 1 by August 31; digit 2 by September 15; digit 3 by September 30; digit 4 by October 15; digit 5 by October 31; digit 6 by November 15; digit 7 by November 30; digit 8 by December 15; and digit 9 by December 31.

The CRT emphasized that once each deadline passes, telephone companies will suspend service for unregistered lines within 72 hours. 

Suspended lines will still be able to make calls to emergency numbers, citizen service lines and their own operator, as well as receive earthquake alerts. Service will be fully restored once the line is successfully registered. 

The government has clarified that the process is carried out directly with telephone companies, not with government agencies, and that companies only associate the user’s name and CURP (the unique population registry code) with the mobile number, deleting any other data or images used during the verification process.

Why the Government Granted the Extension

The decision to extend the deadline, despite earlier assurances that no extension would be granted, stems from a stark reality: by late June 2026, only approximately 63 million of the more than 144 million active mobile lines in Mexico had been registered. Of those registered, 40.2 million were prepaid lines and 22.8 million were postpaid lines, which are automatically registered as they are already associated with an identity at the time of contracting. This leaves approximately 80 million lines—the vast majority of them prepaid—still unregistered.

The low registration rate effectively forced the government’s hand. With the original July 1 deadline looming, a mass service suspension affecting tens of millions of lines would have caused widespread disruption to businesses, families and essential services. 

The CRT acknowledged that while registration had shown “sustained and growing progress,” the sheer volume of pending registrations made the original deadline unworkable. Reports indicate that some carriers had achieved registration rates as low as 16% for certain demographics.

The Government’s Justification for the Database

The Mexican government has framed the mandatory registration as a critical public security measure. According to the CRT, “each telephone number must be registered in the name of a person, to eliminate the anonymity that has allowed crime to be committed, such as fraud or extortion to be committed.” The government maintains that Mexico has been one of the few countries allowing the acquisition of a SIM card without identification, whereas 166 countries already require such registration.

Privacy Concerns and Past Controversies

Despite the government’s security rationale, the database has attracted fierce criticism from privacy advocates, civil liberties organizations and legal experts. The most significant concern is that the current registration requirement echoes the original PANAUT, which the Supreme Court struck down as unconstitutional in April 2022. The court found that the original PANAUT violated the right to privacy, in part because it required the collection of biometric data, which is considered highly sensitive personal information.

The Instituto Nacional de Transparencia, Acceso a la Información y Protección de Datos Personales (INAI) had presented an action of unconstitutionality against the original PANAUT, arguing that it violated data protection rights. Critics argue that the current registration scheme, while ostensibly narrower in scope, represents a revival of the same concept under a different name. Organizations have noted that mobile phone user registries have historically shown little effectiveness in preventing crime while posing significant privacy risks.

Another major concern is data security. Past incidents have demonstrated the vulnerability of government databases in Mexico. Critics have noted that the original PANAUT database was reportedly hacked and its contents sold on the black market, and extortion actually increased by 41.3% after its implementation. This has fuelled skepticism about the government’s ability to safeguard sensitive personal information collected under the new registration scheme.

Civil society organizations have also raised concerns about the potential for function creep—the gradual expansion of a system’s purpose beyond its original intent. While the government insists that information will be used exclusively for security purposes, critics fear that the database could eventually be used for surveillance, political control or other purposes not originally contemplated. The requirement to link a CURP—a unique identifier used across virtually all government services—to a mobile number creates a powerful tool for tracking individuals’ movements and communications.