Guatemalan security forces on Monday broke up a caravan of about 4,000 Honduran migrants trying to reach the US on a journey of thousands of kilometers through Central America on foot, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reporters witnessed.
Police advanced on the group in a coordinated move, striking batons against their shields to make an intimidating noise, prompting the migrants to scatter.
The group was still on Guatemalan soil, and some regrouped to resume their quest for a better life further north.
Thousands of others began returning to Honduras after clashing with the police.
Angie, a 21-year-old Honduran migrant, told AFP she was returning to Honduras to try and officially document her entry into Guatemala, as well as presenting a negative COVID-19 test, one of Guatemala’s requirements for crossing its borders.
“I want to continue to the United States; I don’t want to stay in Guatemala,” she said.
The caravan, which departed Honduras on Friday last week, has been held up since Saturday at the Guatemalan town of Vado Hondo, about 50km inside the border.
They have been waiting to pass, sleeping outdoors and blocking a key road where a massive logjam of cargo trucks has built up as a result.
As the migrants retreated before the advancing security forces on Monday, several threw stones at police.
The officers responded with tear gas, as they attempted to drive the group back toward the Honduran border, thus clearing the road for trucks.
Women carrying small children were among those to flee before the police.
“I am going with my son. In Honduras I have nowhere to live,” a woman told the Guatevision channel, catching her breath after a brisk run.
“If we had money, we would not be here heading north. They treat us like dogs, it should not be like this,” said another woman, holding a small girl.
On Sunday, the group was confronted by police and soldiers with tear gas and batons under strict orders to stop anyone without travel documents or a negative COVID-19 test from going any further.
Several migrants were injured in Sunday’s clashes, a health worker said.
About 9,000 migrants have set out from Honduras since Friday.
On Monday, Guatemalan migration authorities said more than 1,500, including 208 children, had since returned to Honduras. About 800 people were stuck in a town neighboring Vado Hondo.
Those determined to stay the course, including families with young children, spent a second chilly night outdoors on Sunday.
They slept on the asphalt road or on patches of grass, the lucky ones wrapping up in blankets, the rest donning sweaters or long-sleeved T-shirts packed among their sparse belongings.
Former Nicaraguan president Violeta Chamorro, who brought peace to Nicaragua after years of war and was the first woman elected president in the Americas, died on Saturday at the age of 95, her family said. Chamorro, who ruled the poor Central American country from 1990 to 1997, “died in peace, surrounded by the affection and love of her children,” said a statement issued by her four children. As president, Chamorro ended a civil war that had raged for much of the 1980s as US-backed rebels known as the “Contras” fought the leftist Sandinista government. That conflict made Nicaragua one of
COMPETITION: The US and Russia make up about 90 percent of the world stockpile and are adding new versions, while China’s nuclear force is steadily rising, SIPRI said Most of the world’s nuclear-armed states continued to modernize their arsenals last year, setting the stage for a new nuclear arms race, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) said yesterday. Nuclear powers including the US and Russia — which account for about 90 percent of the world’s stockpile — had spent time last year “upgrading existing weapons and adding newer versions,” researchers said. Since the end of the Cold War, old warheads have generally been dismantled quicker than new ones have been deployed, resulting in a decrease in the overall number of warheads. However, SIPRI said that the trend was likely
NUCLEAR WARNING: Elites are carelessly fomenting fear and tensions between nuclear powers, perhaps because they have access to shelters, Tulsi Gabbard said After a trip to Hiroshima, US Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard on Tuesday warned that “warmongers” were pushing the world to the brink of nuclear war. Gabbard did not specify her concerns. Gabbard posted on social media a video of grisly footage from the world’s first nuclear attack and of her staring reflectively at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial. On Aug. 6, 1945, the US obliterated Hiroshima, killing 140,000 people in the explosion and by the end of the year from the uranium bomb’s effects. Three days later, a US plane dropped a plutonium bomb on Nagasaki, leaving abut 74,000 people dead by the
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is to visit Canada next week, his first since relations plummeted after the assassination of a Canadian Sikh separatist in Vancouver, triggering diplomatic expulsions and hitting trade. Analysts hope it is a step toward repairing ties that soured in 2023, after then-Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau pointed the finger at New Delhi’s involvement in murdering Hardeep Singh Nijjar, claims India furiously denied. An invitation extended by new Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney to Modi to attend the G7 leaders summit in Canada offers a chance to “reset” relations, former Indian diplomat Harsh Vardhan Shringla said. “This is a