(Mexico City) Some 600 migrants from twelve Central American countries, but also from Africa and Asia were rescued in Mexico as they traveled crammed into two trucks, the National Migration Institute (INM) said on Saturday.
The migrants – 145 women and 455 men – spotted in the State of Veracruz (south-east) come mainly from poor countries in the south of Mexico (Guatemala for 401 of them, Honduras, Nicaragua) but also from Bangladesh (37 people ), Ghana (six), India and Cameroon (one migrant), detailed the INM in a statement.
They were traveling “crammed” in the trailers of the two trucks, added the local head of the Human Rights Commission, Tonatiuh Hernandez, who sounded the alarm on Friday, without official confirmation.
PHOTO FELIX MARQUEZ, ASSOCIATED PRESS
The migrants mainly come from poor countries south of Mexico.
“There are children, minors, I saw pregnant women, sick people,” added Hernandez, saying he had never seen so many migrants at one time.
Child protection authorities will be seized “for the cases of families or minors who travel alone”, specified the INM which must rule on “the presence and conditions of stay” of these migrants in Mexico.
There are two options, either “assisted return” or “the opportunity to stay (in Mexico) through a regularization process”, adds the INM.
Corridor between the poor countries of Central America and the United States, Mexico is confronted with the arrival of migrants from other horizons (Haiti, Cuba).
Two caravans of several hundred migrants are currently marching through the southern states of the country demanding the regularization of undocumented migrants.
The flow of undocumented people has increased since Joe Biden arrived at the White House on January 20 and his promise to treat them more humanely than his predecessor Donald Trump.
More than 190,000 migrants were counted by the Mexican authorities between January and September, three times more than in 2020. Some 74,300 people were expelled.
The United States, for its part, recorded the illegal entry of 1.7 million people from Mexico into its territory between October 2020 and last September, a record.