The Mexican authorities consider deporting hundreds of migrants from the caravan who were arrested on Monday after clashes with members of the National Guard that armored the southern border with Guatemala, while there are allegations of the disappearance of a girl who crossed the border with her mother Natural geographical, the Suchiate River, amid attempts to enter Mexican territory, which has left a group of the convoy stranded on its shore.
As a result of clashes between soldiers and migrants, who threw stones and were repelled with tear gas, some 400 people were arrested and sent to detention centers , Telemundo News correspondent Raul Torres reported.
"If they beat several of our friends who came there, some came scraped, there they will see them, they are very scratched, as they were beaten with sticks that were walking, there were ladies who fell, all that did not take into account", denounced a migrant who identified himself as Johnny.
Another group that managed to cross decided to return to Guatemala, while a third stayed on the bank of the river on the Mexican side in what some members of the caravan already define as "no man's land" and for now they do not know what to do.
"We are in no man's land," said Alan Mejía, who cradled his two-year-old son in his arms, dressed only in a diaper, while his wife, Ingrid Vanesa Portillo, and her other son, 12, looked at the shore . Mejía had joined other previous caravans, but never passed from the Mexican border city of Tijuana.
"They are planning how to evict us and here we have neither water nor food," Portillo lamented desperately. "There is no hope of moving forward."
In fact, Torres found that there were no indications of humanitarian aid either on the road or for those who were blocked in the river .
"We never thought they would receive us like this, they treated us like dogs," complained Melisa Avila, who was traveling from the Honduran capital, Tegucigalpa, with her 12-year-old son, and was resigning herself to the prospect of spending the night outdoors.
During the weekend, some thousand people entered legally by the bridge thanks to the humanitarian visas offered by the Mexican government as the only way to cross into their territory, where the president, Andrés Manuelo López Obrador has offered them 4,000 jobs in the southern part of the country as well as medical attention .
However, Central Americans have denounced that these jobs are part of the official programs of the Mexican Government Young People Building the Future and Sowing Life, which are also in their home countries, just where they are fleeing violence and poverty.
The National Immigration Institute issued a statement stating that any migrant who entered the country illegally would be arrested, held in a detention center and deported if he did not legalize his situation. Anyone who managed to cross the border could expect a succession of controls on the highway.
As feared, the children suffered in the chaos of the day . On the Mexican shore, an unconscious 14-year-old girl was evacuated to give her medical attention.
Later, along the highway, a mother cried after realizing that she had separated from her youngest daughter when migrants tried to flee from the authorities. Other people who had helped her carrying her five-year-old daughter ran in another direction when people dispersed, and had failed to locate them.
Back in the river, Avila, who had befriended the woman in a shelter of Tecun Uman, walked along the shore showing everyone a picture of the girl.
“Didn't you see this little girl? Pans blue, beige shirt and pink shoes, ”he asked other migrants.
The Guatemalan government gave new data, indicating that 4,000 migrants had entered the country through the two main border crossings and that during the weekend almost 1,700 had entered Mexico by two steps. Another 400 were deported from Guatemala.
The Immigration Institute said Monday night in a statement that some 500 migrants had entered the country irregularly, and announced the "rescue" of 402 , using its usual term for immigrant detentions. Localized migrants would be transferred to detention centers and offered medical attention.
Five members of the National Guard were injured, the agency said without offering further details.
When the stones began to fly in the river on Monday, Elena Vasquez, who feared for the safety of her two frightened children, ran back to the Guatemalan side, where she spent the night. Exhausted after a week of travel, the 28-year-old woman from Olancho, Honduras, promised to persist and hoped that the Mexican authorities would change their minds.
"I'm going to wait as long as it takes, God will open the doors for us," said Vasquez.
Meanwhile, a new group of at least 200 migrants who left El Salvador joined the members of the first caravan of 2020 waiting in Tecún Umán, on the border of Guatemala with Mexico to cross and continue to the United States. The members of this new convoy say they left El Salvador fleeing violence and lack of economic opportunities.
In October 2018, thousands of migrants entered Mexico to flee poverty and violence in order to reach US territory, which caused tensions between the Mexican Government and the United States.
Both countries agreed in June 2019 that the United States would withdraw its threat of imposing tariffs on Mexican products in exchange for the Mexican Government deploying the National Guard on the border with Guatemala to curb the migration flow.
Edited by Olga Luna with information from Raúl Torres and Associated Press
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