Guatemalan officials report that 6,500 migrants are moving from Honduras to the USA. The migrants began pushing through the Guatemalan southern border.
The spokeswoman for Guatemala’s immigration authority, Alejandra Mena, estimated that there were some 6,500 Hondurans crossing the country’s southern border on Saturday, making their way north, with 3,000 to 3,500 of them already in Guatemalan territory. A Honduran police officer said he observed “more or less 5,000 people” walk past his checkpoint.
A video tweeted by Festivales Solidarios shows thousands pushing past Guatemalan police and soldiers.
La gente escapa del infierno que se vive en el mal llamado "Triángulo Norte de Centroamérica"; pobreza, miseria, corrupción, impunidad y un total abandono de los gobiernos a la población. Por eso la gente huye en este #ExodoEnCentroamerica#NingunaPersonaEsIlegal
📹 Cortesía. pic.twitter.com/6iPnk2BeOq— Festivales Solidarios (@festivalesgt) January 17, 2021
Guatemalan soldiers blocked part of a caravan and formed ranks across a highway in Chiquimula, near the Honduras border where the migrants entered the country, according to ABC News.
Guatmala is aggressively attempting to detain the Honduran migrants by placing almost a dozen control points on highways, and the government plans to bus more migrants back to their homeland. Guatemalan President Alejandro Giammattei has argued they pose a risk to themselves and others by traveling during the coronavirus pandemic. Governments throughout the region have made it clear they will not let the caravan through.
The Guatemalan President called on Honduran authorities to “contain the mass exit of its inhabitants. The government of Guatemala regrets this violation of national sovereignty and calls on the governments of Central America to take measures to avoid putting their inhabitants at risk amid the health emergency due to the pandemic.”
The new caravan reportedly embarked on Friday at about 4 a.m. from San Pedro Sula, a notoriously violent industrial hub in north Honduras. Migrants blame two major hurricanes that hit the country in November and economic conditions due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Many of the migrants hope for a warmer reception from the incoming administration of President-elect Joe Biden.
“There’s no choice” but to leave, 25-year-old Oscar Zaldivar, a driver from Cofradia, told ABC News. “You have to leave here, this country because we’re going to die here.”
Guatemalan officials report some of the caravan migrants are headed to Tecun Uman located in southern Mexico, Breitbart reported.