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A new caravan of migrants is leaving from San Pedro Sula in Honduras for the United States. AFP Photo / ORLANDO SIERRA

A thousand people gathered Tuesday evening in San Pedro Sula, in the north of Honduras, to form a new caravan and attempt to travel to the United States.

Following the example of several other caravans that have formed in Honduras over the past year and a half, these Hondurans want to go on foot to the United States by crossing Guatemala and then Mexico and trying to enter American territory to escape poverty and the violence that reigns in their country.

Gathered Tuesday, January 14 in the evening in San Pedro Sula, the second city of Honduras, they responded to a call made on social networks and picked up by the media.

According to Bartolo Fuentes, journalist and human rights defender , unlike previous caravans, the majority of those gathered are young people and come from rural areas. The candidates for emigration, men, women and children, were in the night from Tuesday to Wednesday in various places of San Pedro Sula, in particular in the central station.

Flee unemployment and gangs

During the first caravan, which left on October 14, 2018, more than 2,000 people had marched north in the hope of entering the United States to escape unemployment and the violence of drug trafficking gangs which dominate large parts of Honduras.

At least three other, smaller caravans followed in the first quarter of 2019 . The phenomenon then stopped due to the deployment of soldiers on the Mexican border by US President Donald Trump. Mexico and the United States negotiated an agreement in June allowing Mexico City to avoid the imposition of new customs taxes by monitoring its border to limit the flow of illegal immigrants.

►Also listen: In Honduras, between corruption and climate change, the other reasons for leaving (Large report)

(and with AFP)