Huixtla, Mexico: Thousands of Honduran migrants heading to the United States — a caravan President Donald Trump has called an “assault on our country” — stopped to rest after walking for two days into Mexican territory.
Sleeping on cardboard boxes or plastic bags, the migrants set up a massive, impromptu camp in the southern town of Huixtla, 70 kilometres from the Mexico-Guatemala border.
Many nursed bleeding feet mangled by 10 days of walking nearly 800 kilometres in plastic shoes or flip-flops.
“They’re exhausted,” said migrant rights activist Rodrigo Abeja, of the group Pueblos Sin Fronteras (People Without Borders), which is accompanying the caravan.
More than 7,000 people have now joined the caravan, according to the United Nations, including some Central Americans who were already in Mexico.
Many of the migrants are fleeing poverty and insecurity in Honduras, where powerful street gangs rule their turf with brutal violence.
The caravan has become a politically loaded issue, with only two weeks to go before the United States votes in key midterm elections.
Trump has taken to attacking it regularly — both on Twitter and on the campaign trail — firing up his conservative base with the anti-immigration rhetoric that helped get him elected in 2016.
On Monday, he said the US would start cutting aid to Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador for failing to stop the migrants, called the caravan a national emergency and alleged it was infiltrated by “Middle Easterners” and members of the ultra-violent gang MS-13.
Adding to the political tempest, Vice President Mike Pence said on Tuesday that according to Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez, the caravan “was organised by leftist groups in Honduras financed by Venezuela and sent north to challenge our sovereignty.”
US Customs and Border Protection meanwhile said it had apprehended a record 16,658 people who
arrived in the country illegally in families last month, up 900 from August and nearly 12,000 from September 2017.
A senior administration official called the surge a “crisis.”
Mexico vowed not to bow to outside pressure to halt the caravan. But activists accused the country of violating the migrants’ rights by detaining anyone who tried to apply for asylum.
Mexican authorities said they had registered 1,699 asylum applications from caravan travellers who opted to enter the country legally.
Another 495 migrants have voluntarily asked to be returned to Honduras, they said. — AFP
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