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Arely Orellana's plan was simple: head north, until his five-year-old grandsons can be reunited with his daughter somewhere in Houston.
All they had to do was keep walking for about 3,000 miles.
Orellana did not seem equipped for such a trip: her only luggage was a shoulder bag with some clean clothes. on his feet, a pair of worn sneakers.
But she said she had no choice: the boy's father had been murdered and no one wanted to employ a 65-year-old domestic worker. "I can not feed them anymore," she said pointing to the two boys. "I'm too old, I can not find work."
She was traveling to Texas to find her daughter, who had left her home in northern Honduras three years ago looking for work. She had written her daughter's phone number on her hand so as not to lose it.
More than 2,000 people fleeing poverty and violence have joined the convoy of people traveling en masse through Central America, walking along the road with strollers and wheelchairs or self-driving -stop in vans and buses.
Five days after leaving the Honduran city of San Pedro Sula, they have already crossed much of neighboring Guatemala. And despite increasing fatigue, many said they were determined to reach the United States and seek asylum. Few people seemed to know about Donald Trump's call for regional governments to stop them – or Mexico's warning that anyone entering the country "illegally" faces detention and deportation.
On Wednesday, the Mexican government sent two planes loaded with federal troops to the border town of Tapachula, some of them equipped with riot gear. The deployment suggested that Mexico would not allow the caravan to head north together, as was the case with a similar group in April, infuriating Trump.
Most migrants said that they were trying to escape the cruel poverty and breathtaking violence that has turned Central America into one of the most dangerous regions of the world. Luz Abigail, 34, was traveling with her one – year – old son. "It's so hard to hear my boy say," Mami, I'm hungry, "and I know I only have enough money to buy him a box of fruit juice," she says.
One of the few unaccompanied children in the group was 12-year-old Mario David, who left home in Honduras because of his family's poverty. "The little money we stole from the gangs," he said.
Mario said he hoped to reach the United States and get an education and a job. What would he study? "No matter what – as long as I can win a good dollar," he laughs.
Honduras is one of the poorest countries in the region and has one of the highest homicide rates in the world. Violence, drug trafficking and impunity worsened after the coup of 2009 – when the Honduran army overthrew the democratically elected president, Manuel Zelaya, and contested elections against him. Last year triggered new turbulence.
One year after the coup, 490,000 Honduras left their country, according to the Pew research center. in 2017, this number rose to 600,000.
The caravan began last Friday when a former congressman, Bartolo Fuentes, revealed in local media that he would join a group of 200 people from San Pedro Sula to travel to the United States. The group snowballed as people calculated that a large group would protect them during the dangerous passage to Mexico, where migrants are often targeted for rape, theft and kidnapping.
Guatemala initially indicated that migrants would not be allowed to enter from Honduras, but after a police confrontation, the group simply continued to march – although Fuentes was arrested by the Guatemalan authorities and was subjected to online defamation campaigns in Honduras.
On Wednesday, Ambassador Trump in Guatemala posted a video on Facebook, warning people against any attempt at illegal entry into the United States. "If you try to enter the United States, you will be detained and deported," he said in Spanish. "Go back to your country. Your migration attempt will fail. "
But Mexico said that all Honduran migrants with valid passports and visas would be allowed to enter and that those seeking refuge could start the procedure if they met the conditions required by the law. Mexican Commission for Refugee Assistance (attached to UNHCR).
Most of the migrants spent Wednesday night in Guatemala, where humanitarian groups organized meals, clothing, shelter and medical care, while firefighters and the Red Cross distributed medicine and blisters.
The coordinators say that they plan to reach the Mexican border by the end of the week. "We are familiar with country policies and recent statements, but people will not stop. We can not stop, "said José Luis Carmera, coordinator of migrants in the Honduran capital, Tegucigalpa.
"The Guatemalan border was closed, but we opened it peacefully and, in doing so, we eliminated the first hurdle. We must now open the Mexican border. We do it step by step. "
