The brutal murder of two teenage members of the migrant caravan is a reminder of the violence that migrants are trying to escape.

Two teenage members of the migrant caravan that traveled from Central America to the U.S. border in hopes of asylum in the U.S. were murdered last Saturday night in Tijuana, Mexico.

The two slain victims and a third victim which survived the incident were 16 and 17-year-old boys from Honduras and staying at a shelter for underage migrants in the Mexican border city.

According to the Mexican newspaper La Jornada, the teens left the shelter on Saturday night headed towards another location where migrant caravan members were staying, but their bodies were found dumped along the highway on Sunday. Investigators and the surviving witness said the victims were stabbed and strangled in an apparent robbery attempt.

Andrés Manuel López Obrador, Mexico’s new president, told reporters on Wednesday that an investigation into the murders was underway and called for a migration policy rooted in “the defense and protection of human rights.”

López Obrador, has previously said investment was the key to slowing “forced migration”.

“People don’t leave their communities, their villages, their families, because they want to – they do it out of necessity,” López Obrador told reporters.

“Migration has always existed – ever since the most remote times of world history. But this migration should be optional, not obligatory, not forced.”

Honduras’ foreign ministry called for the protection of the third victim who survived the incident as his knowledge of the crime placed his life at risk.

Two other Hondurans in the migrant caravan have died as it traveled north, one from an overdose and another was run over while walking from Mexicali to Tijuana.