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A police line cuts through the bridge over the Goascorán River, which serves as the border between El Salvador and Honduras.
It's Thursday and a few minutes are up from 6am. The agents monitor the movements of about one hundred Hondurans, peasants and peasants, still covered with blankets and pieces of plastic, fighting against the cold and the rain.
Some people tremble, everyone is hungry. "Do not bring cameras, bring food", shouts a woman away.
Hondurans have been trying to cross the border since Wednesday. They are part of the caravans of migrants who left this week of the Central American country in order to reach the United States.
It was they who unleashed the wrath of President Donald Trump, who threatened to put an end to economic aid in Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador . they allowed their citizens to travel "with the intention of entering the United States illegally."
Similar groups cross Guatemala and Mexico, sometimes accompanied by police and refugees in local shelters.
In El Amatillo, the situation is different: lying on the asphalt of the bridge, Honduran migrants move sparingly, as if they were covered with little heat from the first rays of the sun.
The 12-year-old Angel David Cobán plays and laughs. He stands in front of the police, who double his stature, and it looks like he's facing the moment he sings a melody:
"I'm leaving my country, I do not want to live here because if I stay here, I will starve ". These are verses from "JOH, pa fuera que va", a song by Honduran Macario Mejía, a hymn among detractors of the country's president, Juan Orlando Hernández.
David's mother, Leslie Cobán watches him from a distance, seated next to the other mothers, none of them turns their eyes away from their children while they play, and they all share the reasons they ventured on this journey: they coincide in a better life and in the long-awaited American dream
Like her, the members of the caravan ensure to live a desperate situation in their country.They claim to flee the poverty and the violence which badail Honduras because of the seat of the gangs.
"We suffer too much (in Honduras) to earn only 100 pesos a day", explains Felix Moreno, one of the women next to Leslie. "The road is long and we only "With what I earn, it only reaches me for the milk of the child and not for the food," says Paola, sitting on the other side Leslie side, wearing Mauricio. , his son is only one year old.
"My daughter asks me to come home," adds Felix, and his 12-year-old daughter plays with the boy's hand. Mauricio just laughs.
Between the morning and the night of this Wednesday, about 300 Hondurans arrived up to the police barrier of this border point.
Immigration authorities blocked all people who did not have their identity papers in order or who were traveling with minors who were n & # 39; 39; had no authorization from both parents: the vast majority.
Thus, dozens of migrants, mainly mothers and their children, have seen their way truncated. Among them, David and his mother.
Around 7 am, surrounded by policemen, the Honduran side having already formed a fence of riot agents, the migrants began to despair.
"Nothing to lose"
Gradually, they were grouped in the center of the bridge: "We must cross the river, there is none" a voice was heard at the center of the group. 19659002] "We bought a rope and threw ourselves off the bridge," said another voice.
"Whoever hangs is Juan Orlando," he said about President Hernandez, a mother holding her son in her arms.
"And let the Salvadoran president hang himself," added a young man. 103923379photo20181018171525-f26badfc2ba6fdab237e4c9da16edfed.jpg ” clbad=”img img-responsive image-large”/>
Everyone spoke, everyone had something to say. "But women can not go it alone," Wilson Funes, a 28-year-old man who sometimes took the lead in the group, said.
The idea of crossing the river was gaining strength until there was no one to oppose it. Wilson and another group of youth took over the caravan that had returned and was now crossing the bridge to return to Honduran territory.
"In Honduras, I have nothing to lose and if I do it well, I have a lot to gain," Wilson said while walking one kilometer between the border bridge and the narrowest stretch of the border. river, Honduran side
Halfway through, a man in his forties collapsed on the ground after a seizure that lasted a few minutes. Nobody knew what to do.
"These are the consequences of the ingratitude of the police officers of El Salvador not to let us pbad because we have three days of hunger, sun, rain," said Wilson , standing next to the man.
When the spasms subsided, he and another young man approached to lift him off the ground.
"Let us pbad, that's all we ask for", he added while raising the man, visibly confused.
"If the Salvadorans think we are going to take some land, at the exit, we shake the soles of the feet and leave the land left there," he said before continuing to the river.
Crossing Against the Current
On the shore, the Hondurans stop for a few minutes to reconsider the idea of crossing the Goascorán. Heavy rains in recent weeks have raised the level of water and any effort seemed to be an imminent danger.
After several minutes, the youngest took the initiative and began to tie two or three ropes and tighten them on the narrowest part.
"It would be cowardly not to go through this, c or how are we going to cross the Rio Bravo then?", He says bravely. of the world, one of the youngest men in the group compared to the border between Mexico and the United States, while removing his shoes and getting ready to cross.
On each side of the rope, two men held her tightly and the others led the group. The first to dare was a young woman under 25 years old.
"Hold your own and do not let go of the bow," they warned when the water reached her waist and the force of the current began to push her. "Do not let go, do not give up," they shouted at the Honduran side.
Silence invaded the place when the woman reached the most critical point where the current practically put her on the water. "He will lose," was timidly heard in the group.
But the woman took her strength and managed to reach the other shore. On the Honduran side, shouts and applause took place: courage invaded them.
One by one, they wanted to stay safe until that happened. I sang at the border. His mother entrusted him to God.
"If something happens to us, they will regret it, because we are doing all this (crossing the river) because they do not let us through," said the woman before her son began to enter in the water.
The boy went through without any difficulty. His mother encouraged him from the shore. "It's my son, that's my blood," was shouting at him and a tone of pride and hope was being deciphered. "It's a Honduran huevón", answered the men who held the rope on the other side of the river.
It was the turn of Leslie, the mother of David. The woman, tired in pbading or a little moved to see her son cross, took the rope between her hands. David shouted from the other side: "Mom, mom."
Leslie walked slowly and stopped at the most critical point to scream. "I do it for you", staring at the shore where his son was already waiting, a little scared.
Those who dared not cross the river came back on foot to the road to the border of El Amatillo. On the way, a car stopped and gave the migrants a soda and something to eat.
Some sat on a nearby rock to rest and others took a bus back home.
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