(Tegucigalpa) A caravan of several hundred migrants, mainly Venezuelans, left on foot on Saturday from Honduras, the first in 2024 from this Central American country bringing together men, women and children wishing to reach the United States to escape poverty and violence, authorities said.
“The group is made up of approximately 500 to 600 people, the majority are Venezuelans,” Alejandra Mena, spokesperson for the Guatemalan Migration Institute, told AFP. Other nationalities are present in 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 must pass through Corinto, on the border with Guatemala where in the past police have repeatedly cracked down on migrants trying to enter the country.
Every year, thousands of irregular migrants from Central America set out on the road to reach the United States and escape the violence of criminal gangs 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 different 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.