A caravan of more than 1,000 Hondurans is winding its way toward the country’s border with Guatemala, with the goal of reaching a better life in the US.
Dunia Montoya, a volunteer helping the migrants, said the group on Saturday planned to sleep inside an auditorium in Santa Rosa de Copan, a town several hours east by car from Guatemala.
The caravan on Friday began to swell spontaneously after local media reported on about 160 migrants who had agreed to depart together from San Pedro Sula for greater safety.
Photo: Reuters
The aspiring migrants organized via WhatsApp chats.
“People leave Honduras every day, but this is the first time [they do it] in a public way and in a group,” Montoya said in a telephone interview from Santa Rosa de Copan.
Other Hondurans who had been thinking of leaving the country saw an opportunity to go with a support network. They stuffed backpacks with essentials and rushed to join the caravan.
People lent vans and trucks to help the group, whose initial members had started out on foot.
Hondurans offered bottles of water or food along the way.
Montoya, who plans to stay in Honduras, said many in the caravan have tried multiple times to reach the US.
Some did not enroll their children in school this year, planning to take off any day, she said.
Others joined the group with months-old babies.
Poor economic prospects are the main reason Hondurans want to leave the Central American country of 9.4 million people, according to a survey by the Center for Immigration Studies.
Violence was the second most-cited reason in the poll.
The UN Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean has projected 3.9 percent economic growth for Honduras this year.
The Honduran Ministry of Labor has pegged unemployment at 6.7 percent, although nearly half of working-age Hondurans are underemployed, meaning they cannot make ends meet with the amount of paid work they can secure.
“There’s a misery and a violence that is overwhelming people. People no longer have faith in this country, and they are fleeing,” Montoya said.
Maria Dolores Moreno, 31, said she stuffed a bag with a few personal belongings and grabbed her 10-year-old son to join the caravan on Friday.
She did not bring any money with her.
She has been unemployed for more than a year, she said.
Previously she sold Avon products.
Moreno said by telephone that she hopes to find a job — any job — anywhere in the US.
“We want to adopt the American dream,” she said.
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