SAN PEDRO SULA, Honduras (AP) – About 200 Honduran migrants started walking and hitchhiking along a highway towards the border with Guatemala on Thursday, the day before a migrant caravan leaves the city of San Pedro Sula .
In the afternoon, some arrived at the border crossing in Corinth. The group left on Wednesday, but stopped overnight before reaching about 75 policemen, dressed in riot gear, waiting along the highway outside San Pedro Sula.
One official said the intention was to prevent migrants from violating the pandemic curfew, checking their documents and making sure they were not traveling with children who were not theirs.
The migrants stopped about 2 kilometers before the police waited and lay down under and around a highway overpass. They resumed walking after the curfew ended at 5 am.
Meanwhile, more migrants arrived at the San Pedro Sula bus terminal on Thursday. The station was the main starting point for caravans in the past and several hundred migrants could be seen around the terminal.
But migrants faced the additional challenge of governments that agreed earlier this week to apply immigration laws across their borders.
On Thursday, the National Immigration Institute of Mexico posted videos showing hundreds of agents and members of the National Guard drilling on the southern border. He said the agents are “keeping watch over the southern Mexican states … to enforce immigration law. “
For weeks, a call to a new caravan departing on January 15 circulated on social media. In previous caravans, smaller groups often left earlier than the main caravan. More migrants are expected to converge on San Pedro Sula on Thursday.
Ariel Villega, 35, from the city of Ocotepeque, was walking with his wife and 10-year-old son. He said they plan to arrive at the Corinthian border post and wait for the rest of the caravan to arrive there.
“We have everything, the passport and the COVID test,” said Villega. He said they were leaving because he was unable to find work. “First the pandemic and then the two (hurricanes) left us in crisis”.
Guatemalan President Alejandro Giammattei decreed on Wednesday night a “state of prevention” on the country’s border with Honduras. The decree noted the threat of entry of migrants without the required documentation and without monitoring of border-related pandemic screening. Guatemala is demanding proof of a negative COVID-19 test. The decree says that more than 2,000 national police and soldiers will be stationed at the border.
The Mexican government said on Wednesday that he and 10 other countries in North and Central America are concerned about the health risks of COVID-19 among migrants without the proper documents.
The 11-member Regional Conference on Migration statement suggests that Mexico and Central America may continue to refuse migrants due to the perceived risks of the pandemic.
The group “expressed concern about the exposure of irregular migrants to situations of high risk for their health and their lives, especially during the health emergency”.
On Monday, representatives from Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador met in the Honduran city of Corinth, on the border with Guatemala, to discuss coordination on migration issues.
In a joint statement, governments expressed their commitment to protect human rights, but also called for migration to be orderly and legal.
When hundreds of Hondurans tried to form a caravan last month, authorities stopped them before they even reached the border with Guatemala. Other caravan attempts last year were dismantled by Guatemalan authorities before arriving in Mexico.
The pressure to migrate is only growing. Central America was hit by two Category 4 hurricanes in November, devastating a region that was already struggling with the pandemic. Storms destroyed plantations, closed deals and left thousands homeless.
The migrants also expressed hope of receiving a warmer welcome on the border with the United States under the administration of President-elect Joe Biden, who will take office next week.
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Associated Press writers Sonny Figueroa in Guatemala City and Mark Stevenson in Mexico City contributed to this report.