The Guatemalan security forces negotiated with the civilians for the troops to be turned over to Mexican authorities, said Ruben Tellez, a spokesman for the Guatemalan armed forces.

Mexican police reports had initially suggested that the 30-year-old Guatemalan driver, Elvin Mazariegos, pointed a gun at the soldiers.

But Mexican Defense Minister Luis Sandoval told reporters that it was "an erroneous reaction on the part of military personnel because there was no aggression with a firearm or in any other way."

He said that a soldier had opened fire after three Guatemalan civilians traveling in a vehicle turned around when they saw the checkpoint in Mexico's border state of Chiapas.

"One of our soldiers fired shots that wounded one of the civilians," Sandoval said.

"He was given attention by our personnel but unfortunately he lost his life."

Residents of border communities in Guatemala and Mexico arrived at the scene and detained 15 troops and three trucks on Monday.

They released nine of them that night and the remaining six at dawn on Tuesday, along with their weapons.

During the negotiations, Mexican authorities promised to bring Mazariegos' body to the Guatemalan town of Tacana, and "to submit the soldiers involved to Mexican justice," Tellez said.

In a tweet Monday, Guatemalan Foreign Minister Pedro Brolo demanded Mexico investigate crimes committed against his compatriots "so that justice is done and these reprehensible acts will not be repeated."

He was also alluding to the murders in January of 16 Guatemalan migrants in violence-wracked Tamaulipas state, near the US border, in a case in which a dozen Mexican police officers have been detained.

The governments of Mexico and Guatemala launched a joint military and police border operation over the weekend to stop caravans of migrants hoping to reach the United States.

Monday's shooting came two days after a Salvadoran woman died at the hands of Mexican police after an altercation with a grocery store manager.

According to a prosecutor, "disproportionate force" was used, causing a spine fracture.

Mexican President Andrew Manuel Lopez Obrador vowed there would be "no impunity" for police involved in Victoria Esperanza Salazar's killing, which sparked angry protests in El Salvador and Mexico.

The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights on Tuesday condemned the events that led to Salazar's death and called for training of the Mexican security forces in the use of force and human rights.