Guatemalan police arrested some 200 people at the border Saturday who had left Honduras on foot for the United States in the first Central American migrant caravan of 2024, authorities said.
The migrants “are at km 305 before reaching the Motagua bridge”, in the department of Izabal (eastern Guatemala), on the border with Honduras, said Alejandra Mena, spokesperson for the Guatemalan Institute of migrations.
According to the official, there is a “presence of security forces” and migration delegates “to check the documents” of the members of the caravan.
According to local media, the caravan left from a bus station in San Pedro Sula, in northern Honduras, where the migrants, including women with young children, had met the day before.
The group is heading towards Corinto, on the border with Guatemala where in the past police have repeatedly cracked down on migrants trying to enter the country.
“The group is made up of approximately 500 to 600 people, the majority are Venezuelans,” Alejandra Mena told AFP a few hours earlier. Other nationalities are present in the caravan.
Every year, thousands of illegal migrants from Central America set out on the road to reach the United States and escape criminal gang violence and poverty, which has worsened since the COVID-19 pandemic.
In Honduras, devastating hurricanes have made the situation worse.
Migrants from Honduras are used to uniting mainly with Venezuelans arriving from South America and also driven by the “American dream” at the cost of many dangers in the various transit countries.
“Five times I left because there was no work and I needed to find a life elsewhere,” Wilfredo Bonilla, a Honduran, explained on the Televicentro channel.
“We will arrive together, united as a family, and everything will be fine,” assured another migrant in the caravan, giving his name Rafael.