The exodus continues. A "caravan" formed of hundreds of Hondurans forced Wednesday, January 15, the border with Guatemala. Objective: to win the United States, despite the opposition of American President Donald Trump who has imposed agreements with the countries of Central America to curb illegal immigration.
About 400 men, women and children, who left Tuesday evening from San Pedro de Sula, in the north of Honduras, met Wednesday morning in Corinto, on the border between Honduras and Guatemala.
The small crowd refused to register with the migration services and forced the police to try to block its passage. On the other side of the border, a dozen Guatemalan police officers left the migrants behind, and followed them with two vehicles. However, other migrants who later arrived in small groups were stranded at the border. Finally, police and soldiers accepted the passage of small groups of adults, but prohibited the children from crossing the border.
"In Honduras, we are killed"
Nearly a thousand men, women and children began to assemble Tuesday afternoon in San Pedro Sula and then head in groups to the border with Guatemala. "We are asking for asylum: in Honduras, we are being killed," proclaimed on social networks the call for the training of this new "caravan of migrants". The message ensures that Salvadorans and Guatemalans will join the cohort on Friday.
Like many other caravans that have formed in Honduras over the past year and a half, these Hondurans want to go to the United States on foot, crossing Guatemala and then Mexico, and trying to enter American territory to escape poverty. and the violence that reigns in their country.
The phenomenon had stopped in 2019 due to the deployment of soldiers at the border by US President Donald Trump. The latter also imposed migration agreements in El Salvador, Guatemala and Mexico on asylum applications, aimed at curbing illegal immigration. Washington seeks to rely on the countries of Central America to welcome migrants.
Under pressure from Washington, Mexico has deployed more than 25,000 troops distributed between the southern border - where the majority of Central American migrants arrive - and the north, at the 3,200 km border that separates it from the United States.
With AFP
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