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On Sunday, riot police and the Guatemalan army fired tear gas and beat members of a caravan of thousands of Central American migrants heading to the United States with sticks.
It’s about 6000 migrants, according to official figures, who left Honduras last Friday. But the total group of people who make up the caravan will reach 9000 and they entered Guatemala in different phases between Friday and Saturday.
During the incidents in an attempt to disperse the group near the border between the two countries, several people were injured.
The Guatemalan government says it has deported nearly 1,000 people to Honduras in the past three days for entering the country illegally.
Guatemalan human rights ombudsperson Jordn Rodas Andrade called the actions of security forces against migrants “deplorable” in a Twitter message accompanied by an official statement and said that “empathy and solidarity “had to be observed.
Migrants say they were forced to flee poverty, violence and devastation caused by two major hurricanes last November and they want to reach the United States via Mexico.
After illegally crossing the border post at Florido, on the border between Honduras and Guatemala, migrants began to concentrate on Saturday afternoon at a military post in Vado Hondo, in Chiquimula, where they were first asked documents and a negative covid-19 test. in the midst of the struggles, which degenerated into clashes at night.
The caravan attempted Sunday morning to try to get through the barricade of more than 3,000 police and soldiers, but was pushed back, according to Guatemalan immigration authorities.
Video footage shared by the Guatemalan government and reproduced by local media shows hundreds of migrants pressing against a wall by security forces, using sticks to stop the influx of people.
“Several people were reportedly injured, migrants, army and migration personnel, ”said Alejandra Mena, spokesperson for the Guatemalan Migration Institute (IGM), according to Reuters.
The official did not indicate the precise number of injured and added that they were coordinating support with medical staff to treat the injured.
The Guatemalan authorities had calculated the day before that between 7,000 and 8,000 people had entered their territory since Friday, and that they had returned nearly 1,000 migrants from Honduras, while the caravan tried to advance towards the Mexico.
“They have no heart, we are risking our lives”Dixon Vzquez, 29, told AFP news agency, which begged the Guatemalan authorities to let the group continue.
“There is no work in Honduras,” he said.
The Mexican government, which has tightened controls at its southern border, has recognized Guatemala’s efforts to act “firmly and responsibly” against contingents of migrants who “violate its sovereignty” in a statement by the Ministry of Affairs strangers in the night. Saturday
This weekend’s massive caravan is even higher than the so-called “2018 refugee caravan”, the mobilization crossed the border between Guatemala and Mexico on March 26 and the United Nations estimated at 7,000 people.
And this mobilization comes a few days after the inauguration of the President-elect of the United States, Joe Biden.
Biden has pledged a more humane approach to migration in his campaign, unlike incumbent President Donald Trump.
It was only a matter of days for Central America to once again become the route of a new caravan of migrants dreaming of a better life in the United States.
In addition to the stifling levels of poverty and violence that regularly plague Honduras, the latest hurricanes have left many people with virtually nothing.
Hondurans had already warned at the time that migration was their only option. And the hope that the next U.S. government will ease its immigration policy has encouraged thousands of Central Americans to join this new journey.
But to realize their dream, we see that they will have to take a nightmarish journey.
Not only because of the dangers already in the route until it reaches the United States, but also because of episodes as alarming as that of Chiquimula, where the Guatemalan army used force. to stop a crowd and force it into the country. “regularly”.
Pictures show the desperation of thousands over soldiers who attempt, with weapons and tear gas, to enforce the current law and demand documents and PCR tests that few of these migrants are likely to afford .
Those who manage to pass will face another difficult barrier in their path: the southern border of Mexico that the government has been protecting for days with hundreds of soldiers and members of the National Guard.
It remains to be seen how the migration changes promised by President-elect Joe Biden will shape the future of those seeking to emigrate to the United States and their relations with Mexico and Central America, following a government of Donald Trump characterized by threats to these countries if they did not prevent the organization of caravans like this one.
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