Tijuana declares ‘humanitarian crisis’ and seeks UN help

MEXiCO CitY: The mayor of Tijuana in Mexico has declared a “humanitarian emergency” among the thousands of migrants who have arrived in the border city.

Mayor Juan Manuel Gastelum said the city cannot handle the expense of harbouring more than 4,700 migrants from Central America in a football stadium.

“I will not spend the money of the inhabitants of Tijuana,” said Gastelum, adding the meals for migrants cost 550,000 pesos per day (RM113,300) and they will seek the United Nations’ help .

More than 700 civil servants have been deployed to assist, according to the city government.

The migrants, who come primarily from Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala, have travelled mostly on foot across Mexico, are hoping for a chance to claim political asylum in the United States.

Tensions in Tijuana rose on Friday when police attempted to make an arrest for alleged marijuana use. A young man was arrested after a police officer was injured by a stone thrown at him.

Police have arrested 109 of the migrants for alleged minor offences since their caravan arrived in Tijuana, a city in north-western Baja California across from the US city of San Ysidro, California.

Seventy-one of the migrants have been returned to their home countries, said the newspaper Excelsior.

Thousands more Central Americans who are fleeing violence and poverty in their home countries are en route to the US border despite President Donald Trump's vow not to allow them in.

Manuel Figueroa, who leads the city’s social services department, said Tijuana was bringing in portable toilets and showers, as well as shampoo and soap. But it wasn’t enough. “Because of the absence, the apathy and the abandonment of the federal government, we are having to turn tothe UN,” Figueroa said.

Rene Vazquez, 60, a Tijuana resident who was volunteering at the stadium, said Mexico’s federal government ignored the problem by allowing the caravan to cross the country without stopping. Now the city of 1.6 million is stuck with the fallout.

“I don’t have anything against the migrants, they were the most deceived, but this is affecting us all,” Vazquez said. — dpa