(Mexico City) A caravan of several hundred migrants, which had been crossing Mexico since October 23, reached an agreement with Mexican authorities on Thursday after multiple tensions with security forces throughout its journey.
The migrants negotiated with representatives of the Ministry of the Interior who promised them a “census” of particular situations to “deal with them appropriately”.
In total, 17 people including 13 police officers were injured Sunday evening when migrants arrived in the capital Mexico City during a clash with security forces, the regional government of Mexico City said.
Two Cuban migrants were killed in late October in the south of the country by the National Guard. They were part of the caravan, organizers said, which authorities have not confirmed. President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has called for those responsible to be brought to justice.
The migrants had left from the border with Guatemala.
The seven-point agreement provides for the development of a “list of members of the caravan”, giving “priority to children,” said a statement from the Ministry of the Interior. Migrants will have to specify whether they wish to stay in Mexico or simply pass through it.
On January 17, the authorities will set up a “permanent table” to study migration situations.
This agreement ends the caravan, said its leader, Irineo Mujica, a Mexican who had spoken very harshly against the authorities in his country.
At the end of November, the government had granted 2,500 humanitarian visas to another caravan of migrants.
Migrants who cross Mexico to reach the United States have been organizing themselves in caravans for several years to protect themselves as much from the hacking of the authorities as from the criminal networks of smugglers.
Others still try to reach the United States by relying on the smugglers for large sums of money and inhumane travel.
On December 9, 56 migrants, mostly from neighboring Guatemala, died in a truck crash that overturned in Chiapas.
One migrant said he had agreed with the smugglers on a price of $ 13,000 to travel from Guatemala to Houston, Spanish newspaper El Pais reported.
Faced with the firmness of the United States, Mexico is facing record flows this year, with 190,000 undocumented people recorded between January and September, three times more than in 2020.