Mexican authorities allowed dozens of women and children from a US-bound Honduran migrant caravan to enter the country on Saturday, but thousands remain stranded on a border bridge between Guatemala and Mexico, where riot police barred their progress.
Mexican Ambassador to Guatemala Luis Manuel Lopez said the women and children would be processed by immigration authorities and taken to a shelter in the city of Tapachula, 40km away.
Mexican authorities said about 900 other migrants — tired of waiting on the bridge — resorted to crossing the Suchiate River below on makeshift rafts and police did not intervene as they clambered up the muddy riverbank on the Mexican side.
Photo: EPA-EFE
Many of them had spent more than 24 hours on the packed bridge where heat and hunger was adding to a growing sense of despair. Efforts to retrieve them were ongoing, authorities said.
US President Donald Trump, speaking at a rally in Elko, Nevada, kept up his rhetoric against the migrants and suggested the caravan was politically motivated.
“The Democrats want caravans, they like the caravans. A lot of people say ‘I wonder who started that caravan?’” he said.
Photo: AP
He thanked Mexico for blocking the caravan’s progress.
“Mexico has been so incredible. Thank you Mexico and the leaders of Mexico, thank you. And you know why, because now Mexico respects the leadership of the United States,” he said.
Trump has threatened to cut aid to the region, deploy the military and close the US-Mexican border if authorities did not stop them.
Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez and his Guatemalan counterpart Jimmy Morales continued Trump’s theme after they met in Guatemala to discuss the crisis on Saturday.
“This migration has political motivations, which is violating the borders and the good faith of the states and of course putting at risk the most important thing, people,” Morales he said.
Hernandez also deplored “the abuse of people’s needs” for “political reasons.”
“Without a doubt, we have a lot to do so that our people can have opportunities in their communities,” he said.
The caravan originated in the Honduran town of San Pedro Sula a week ago, with about 2,000 would-be migrants.
Guatemala has organized a fleet of buses to take Hondurans back to their country. More than 300 people have taken up a government offer of a bus ride home to their country, police said.
Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto described the situation as “unprecedented.”
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