GUATEMALA CITY (AP) – Guatemalan soldiers on Saturday blocked part of a caravan of as many as 9,000 Honduran migrants at a point not far from where they entered the country to reach the US border.
The soldiers, many in helmets and with shields and sticks, lined up on a highway in Chiquimula, near the border with Honduras, to block the procession of migrants.
The Guatemalan Immigration Department distributed a video of several hundred men trading with soldiers, pushing through their lines and running, even as troops stopped hundreds of others.
Guatemalan President Alejandro Giammattei issued a statement calling on the Honduran authorities to “stem the massive exit of its residents”. On Friday, the migrants entered Guatemala by pushing past about 2,000 policemen and soldiers at the border; most participated without showing the negative coronavirus test required by Guatemala.
The government of Guatemala deplores this violation of national sovereignty and calls on the governments of Central America to take steps to prevent their residents from being endangered amid the health emergency caused by the pandemic, Giammattei’s statement continued.
Guatemala has set up nearly a dozen highway checkpoints and, as it has done before, could start transporting more migrants to Honduras, arguing that they pose a risk to themselves and others by traveling during the coronavirus pandemic.
Governments across the region have made it clear that they will not let the caravan through.
Mexico continued to drill thousands of National Guard members and immigration officers on the southern border, in a display of power intended to keep the caravan from crossing Mexico.
On Friday evening, two groups of more than 3,000 Honduran migrants each forced their way into Guatemala without registering, part of a larger migrant caravan that had left the Honduran city of San Pedro Sula before dawn. A third group entered Guatemala on Saturday.
The Honduran migrants are trying to cross Guatemala to reach Mexico, driven by increasing poverty and the hope of warmer shelter if they can reach the border with the United States. However, several previous attempts to form caravans have broken up through Mexico, Guatemala and Honduras.
On Friday, the migrants left San Pedro Sula at approximately 4 a.m., young men and entire families with sleeping children. Some took fast rides while others walked the highway accompanied by the police.
Mainor Garcia, a 19-year-old worker from San Pedro Sula, was wearing a purple knapsack as he walked the highway early Friday. He said he was afraid of the trip, but was willing to take the risk. “(Hurricanes) Eta and Iota have destroyed all of our homes,” he said.
“There is no choice” but to leave, said 25-year-old Oscar Zaldivar, a driver from Cofradia. “You have to leave this country here, because we are dying here.”
The International Committee of the Red Cross said in a statement Friday, “The combination of COVID-19, social exclusion, violence and climate-related disasters happening simultaneously on a scale rarely seen before in Central America poses new humanitarian challenges. “
The migrants leave with little certainty as to how far they will get. Regional governments have recently been more united than ever to stop their progress.
Francisco Garduño Yáñez, head of Mexico’s National Immigration Institute, said in a statement Friday that his country must “guarantee our national territory” and called for “an orderly, safe and legal migration with respect for human rights and humanitarian policies.”
On Wednesday, the 11-country regional conference on migration “expressed concern about the exposure of irregular migrants to situations of high risk to their health and their lives, especially during the health emergency.”
On Thursday, Mexican officials said they had discussed migration with US President-elect Joe Biden’s choice of national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, and discussed a possible program for the development of North Central America and southern Mexico “ in response to the economic crisis caused by the pandemic and the recent hurricanes in the region. “
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Escalon reported from San Pedro Sula, Honduras.