Migrant caravan pauses to rest, mourn
Travelers remember man who fell off truck
HUIXTLA, Mexico — Still more than 1,000 miles from their goal of reaching the United States, a caravan of Central American migrants briefly halted their journey Tuesday to mourn a fellow traveler killed in a road accident.
Thousands awakened as the sun rose over a makeshift encampment in a rain-soaked square in the far southern Mexican town of Huixtla, a chorus of coughs rattling from the shapeless forms wrapped in blankets and bits of plastic sheeting.
A mobile medical clinic truck pulled into the square in the morning to offer the migrants treatment.
Municipal worker Daniel Lopez said the town was offering food and water as well as basic painkillers and rehydration liquids.
Overnight, candles arranged in the shape of a cross were lit in a simple memorial to the dead Honduran man, who fell from the back of an overcrowded truck Monday as it traveled on a highway.
“Today we won’t move. Today is a day of mourning,” said activist Irineo Mujica of the Pueblo Sin Fronteras group, which is aiding the migrants.
He added that they would leave before dawn Wednesday headed for Mapastepec, about 38 miles up the coast.
The caravan, estimated to include more than 7,000 people, has advanced about 45 miles since crossing the border from Guatemala and still faces more than 1,000 miles to the closest U.S. border crossing at Mcallen, Texas.
Many in the caravan have low odds of qualifying for asylum, as the United States does not consider things like fleeing from poverty or gang violence as qualifying factors.
A smaller caravan earlier this year headed for the California crossing, dissipating as it advanced, and only about 200 of the 1,200 in that group reached the border.
Nearly 1,700 from the current caravan have already dropped out and applied for asylum in Mexico, according to Mexican authorities, and another 500 have decided to voluntarily return home to Honduras.
And the numbers could thin out far more as people decide to take their chances in Mexico or strike out on their own.