Thousands of migrants storm Guatemala-Mexico border
Thousands of migrants forced their way through Guatemala’s border and crowded on to a bridge leading to Mexico on Friday.
The mainly Honduran migrants, whose trek triggered anti-immigrant comments from US President Donald Trump, surged through police lines to the final fence on Mexico’s southern border.
There, at the far end of the bridge over the Suchiate River that forms the western part of the border, they hurled rocks and other objects at hundreds of riot police, who fired rubber bullets and teargas.
Migrants, federal police and others were wounded.
“We’re running away from violence, and we arrive here and they just hit us more,” said Marta Ornelas Cazares, 28, who was nursing her baby. She lost sight of her other two children, aged 10 and 15, in the turmoil.
Marina Alvarado, 48, said: “We haven’t eaten. The soldiers just sent us some water. We are imprisoned here, like animals. Please, open the door.”
The Mexican authorities said the migrants would have to file asylum claims one at a time to enter the country. They began letting them through in a trickle, women and children first, who were ushered on to trucks and taken to shelters.
Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto said the situation was unprecedented.
“Violent entry into the country not only threatens our sovereignty but also puts the migrants themselves at risk,” Mr Pena Nieto said.
The migrants are generally fleeing poverty and insecurity in Honduras, where powerful street gangs rule. Honduras is one of the world’s most violent countries, with a homicide rate of 43 for every 100,000 citizens.
“We’re staying here until they open this fence,” said Adonai Sanchez, 36, who was travelling with his three nephews, aged two, three and 14.
Others returned to the Guatemalan side late on Friday, where shelters gave them food and water.
But the scene remained tense at the final border barrier, a tall fence of white metal bars.
Chanting “Yes we can”, and “Mexico, Mexico”, migrants earlier climbed or tore down barriers, stampeding across the bridge.
They passed babies overhead through the crowd, as women holding the hands of crying children or pressing infants to their chests streamed past the broken metal barriers and on to the bridge.
One group briefly broke through the final fence before police forced them back and closed it again. Some used a rope to jump off the bridge and swim across the river.
Groups travelled by bus or walked from Honduras, gathering in recent days in the Guatemalan town of Tecun Uman near the border bridge. Mexico expected about 3,000 migrants.
In Honduras, hundreds marched in the capital in solidarity with their compatriots.
On Thursday, Mr Trump described the movement as an onslaught and said it was an “assault on our country”.
He also threatened to cut aid to the region, send in the military and close the US-Mexico border.