Second migrant caravan enters Mexico
Group surrounded, escorted by police officers
TECUN UMAN, Guatemala — Hundreds of Central Americans following in the footsteps of a thousands-strong migrant caravan making its way toward the U.S. border crossed a river from Guatemala into Mexico on Monday, defying a heavy Federal Police presence deployed to patrol that country’s southern frontier.
A low-flying police helicopter hovered overhead as the migrants waded in large groups through the Suchiate River’s murky waters, apparently trying to use the downdraft from its rotors to discourage them.
Guatemala’s Noti7 channel reported that one man drowned and aired video of a man dragging a seemingly lifeless body from the river.
Once on the Mexican side the migrants were surrounded and escorted by dark-uniformed officers as sirens wailed.
The standoff at the riverbank followed a more violent confrontation that occurred on the bridge over the river Sunday night, when migrants threw rocks and used sticks against Mexico police. One migrant died from a head wound during the clash, but the cause was unclear.
The group was much smaller than the first caravan. In the Mexican border town of Ciudad Hidalgo, they said they hoped to continue onward early Tuesday morning.
Far up the road in southern Mexico, the original caravan resumed its advance, still at least 1,000 miles or farther from their goal of reaching the United States.
On Monday, Mexican Interior Secretary Alfonso Navarrete Prida lamented what he called a second “violent attempt” to storm the border, accusing people of placing the elderly, pregnant women and children at the front, putting them at risk of being crushed.
“Fortunately, that did not happen,” he said.
The governmental National Human Rights Commission opened an investigation into the use of the helicopter at the river, saying it caused “strong winds and waves that put people at risk ... especially girls, boys and women.”
The Interior Department said in a statement that two Hondurans ages 17 and 22 were arrested Monday when one of them tried to shoot at police in the town of Ignacio Zaragoza, near the Hidalgo border crossing.
It said the Glock failed to fire, and no agents were injured.