Caravan migrants take buses and plan to hop to Mexico City

DONAJI, Mexico – After three exhausting weeks of walking on highways and banging in light trucks and flat-bottomed trucks, thousands of Central American migrants traveling in a caravan crossing southern Mexico learned Friday that they would be doing so soon a jump in the national capital by bus.

As the caravan entered the state of Veracruz on the Gulf Coast, Governor Miguel Angel Yunes announced that local authorities would provide not only humanitarian assistance, but also mass transportation to migrants.

"It's very important that they can move quickly from Veracruz to another place," Yunes said in a video message released in the evening. "For this reason, we also offered them a means of transport so that, if possible, tomorrow (…), they can go to Mexico City or wherever they wish."

During an evening meeting, the organizers of the caravan announced to the migrants that they would leave around five in the morning to travel to the capital in dozens of buses, which is apparently enough to accommodate several thousand people.

"We are all going there!" Said one of the group coordinators.

The organizers said women and children would be given priority, and buses would leave in groups of 10 for a 10 to 12 hour drive.

The announcement came after the Mexican government ignored the migrants' request to take a bus to Mexico City a few days earlier, while they were in Juchitan, Oaxaca state.

Earlier in the day, a third caravan of migrants – this time from El Salvador – crossed the Suchiate River in Mexico on Friday, bringing another 1,000 to 1,500 people to reach the US border.

The third caravan attempted to cross the bridge between Guatemala and Mexico, but the Mexican authorities told those who would make it to show a passport and a visa and to enter by group of 50 to be processed.

Salvadorans feared to be deported, so they turned around and crossed a shallow stretch of the river to enter Mexico.

The police were present, but she did not attempt to physically stop the migrants, who then took a highway to the nearest big city, Tapachula.

Mexico is now facing the unprecedented situation of three caravans spread over more than 500 km of highways in the southern states of Chiapas and Oaxaca, with a total of about 6,000 migrants. On 19 October, the first and largest group of migrants, mainly Hondurans, entered Mexico.

Although the first caravan numbered 7,000 people in the past, it has dropped considerably. It has been difficult to know their exact number because the inhabitants are scattered on motorways and in small towns. The Interior Ministry of Mexico estimated that it had only 3,000 people as of Friday. Other estimates had around 4,000 or so.

The second caravan, which also numbers between 1,000 and 1,500 people, entered Mexico earlier this week and is now in Mapastepec, Chiapas. The second group includes Hondurans, Salvadorans and some Guatemalans. In addition, the government has identified a fourth, smaller group of 300 Central American migrants in the state of Veracruz on the Gulf Coast.

We still did not know how many migrants would arrive there; 20 days of heat, constant marches, chills, rain, and disease had taken their toll. Mexico's Ministry of the Interior said nearly 3,000 of the first caravan's migrants had applied for asylum in Mexico; hundreds of others have returned home.

The Honduran migrant Saul Guzman, 48, spent the night under a tin roof at Matias Romero, a town in the state of Oaxaca, with his 12-year-old son Dannys, before heading for the Donaji city, 47 km north.

"I have gone through a lot of things," Guzman said. "I want to spend my time differently, not in poverty."

In his hometown of Ocotepeque, Honduras, he left a coffin, either for his mother, who suffers from dementia, "or for me, if I do not succeed," said Guzman.

The migrants made Thursday a grueling 40 km (65 km) journey from Juchitan, Oaxaca, after failing to get the bus that they hoped for. Friday's carriages allowed them to arrive early at their destination of the day, Donaji, and some headed for a city further north, Sayula.

Another large caravan passed Veracruz at the beginning of the year, but then turned back to Mexico City and finally tried to reach Tijuana in the far northwest. Few did it.

Immigration agents and police nibbled the edges of the first two caravans.

A federal official who was not allowed to quote his name said that 153 migrants belonging to the second caravan had been arrested Wednesday during roadside inspections on the highway to Chiapas, a short distance away. of the Guatemalan border.

Pressure was also exerted on the first caravan. Federal police began stopping cargo trucks and forcing migrants to leave the harbor, saying their habit of hanging on top or alongside trucks was dangerous.

At other points along the way, the police forced the overloaded pickups to drop off the migrants. In previous days, they ordered the vans to stop helping with transportation.

President Donald Trump sent American troops to the Mexican border in response to migrant caravans. More than 7,000 active duty soldiers have been deployed to Texas, Arizona and California.

Trump told the US military mobilizing at the southwestern border that if US troops faced migrants who were throwing stones, they should react as if they were "guns". He also plans to sign an order next week holding large-scale migrants crossing the southern border and forbidding anyone illegally taken the right to apply for asylum.

Although some migrants clashed with the Mexican police on a bridge at the Guatemalan border, they repeatedly denied coming with malicious intent, claiming that they were fleeing poverty and violence.

"We are not killers," said Stephany Lopez, a 21-year-old Salvadoran with the first caravan.

Similar caravans have occurred regularly over the years and have gone almost unnoticed, but Trump focused on the latest protesters seeking to make border security a hot topic in next week's mid-term elections.

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Peter Orsi's associate editor in Mexico contributed to the writing of this report.

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