Honduran Migrant Caravan Continues Crossing Guatemala

Caravan with Honduran emigrants Photo: Prensa Latina

Guatemala_ Despite warnings from the United States government, a caravan with Honduran emigrants has continued its passage through Guatemala, where they are receiving support from the population and humanitarian organizations, Prensa Latina reports.

Some 2,000 people make up the group, which left San Pedro Sula, a city in northern Honduras, on foot last Saturday with the intention of arriving in the United States in search of better living conditions, they say.

Children, pregnant women, the elderly and people with disabilities travel in the caravan, making advancement more difficult.

Hondurans crossed the Guatemalan border massively and without migratory registration last Monday, despite the police blockade.

The first resting place was the municipality of Esquipulas, bordering Honduras, where they spent the night, after in Chimquimula, head of the department of the same name, and on Tuesday night a group arrived in the capital city to sleep in the Casa del Migrante, in the zone 1.

The Guatemalans' solidarity has been present along the way, they are given water, food, candy, clothes, diapers.

The Government instructed the Guatemalan Institute of Migration (IGM), in coordination with the authorities in charge of the issue, to provide support to assist the caravan that moves through the national territory under the rain.

Through a press release, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs informed that the IGM 'will carry out the necessary actions and provisions to identify and document the people who entered the Guatemalan territory in an irregular manner.'

It also states that "it will always seek the protection of people, especially children and adolescents, ensuring the best interests of the child in accordance with current national regulations."

U.S. President Donald Trump expressed on Tuesday his displeasure with this irregular mobilization and threatened Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador with cutting off their financial assistance if the caravan arrives in Mexico and attempts to cross the border.

The irregular march of Hondurans occurs less than a week before the second Conference on Prosperity and Security in Central America in Washington, where the three nations threatened by the US President asked for greater financial support to confront regional problems, mainly the growing emigration.