Guatemala attacks Honduran migrants
Guatemalan police and soldiers launched tear gas and wielded batons and shields against a group of Honduran migrants that tried to push through their roadblock early Sunday.
A group of about 2,000 migrants had stopped short of the roadblock the night before. The roadblock was strategically placed at a chokepoint on the two-lane highway to Chiquimula in an area known as Vado Hondo. It’s flanked by a tall mountainside and a wall leaving the migrants with few options.
Some 100 migrants tried to make their way through authorities around 7:30 a.m. Sunday. The security forces beat them back and deployed tear gas. None made it through and the larger remaining contingent kept its distance during the melee.
Some migrants were visibly injured by baton strikes. One man, who did not give his name, leaned against a wall near police with a bandage atop his head.
“They hit me in the head,” he said. “I didn’t come with the intention of looking for problems with anybody. We’re brothers, Central Americans. We’re not looking for trouble. We just want to pass.”
Later, hundreds of migrants sat down on the roadway, refusing to leave and insisting they be allowed through, appealing to the soldiers as fellow Central Americans.
Leila Rodriguez, of Guatemala’s human rights office, spoke to the migrants, saying “this is a distressing moment we’re experiencing.” “We want to start a dialogue with you, to ask you to accept some of the needs of the Guatemalan people right now,” she said, in apparent reference to President Alejandro Giammattei’s refusal to allow caravans through out of fear of COVID-19.
Some of the migrants wore face masks, others didn’t, but there was little social distancing among them. Few had the negative COVID-19 tests that Guatemala requires for people entering the country.
Guatemala’s Health Ministry reported that 21 of the migrants sought medical attention at health centers and tested positive for the coronavirus. The department said the 12 men and nine women would not be returned to Honduras until they undergo quarantine at centers in Guatemala.
As the standoff stretched toward 24 hours, some migrants, like Ismael Eliazar of Honduras, lay down in the grass beside the roadway. “We have only had water, even my stomach is grumbling,” he said. Referring to the damage wrought by two major hurricanes that hit his hometown near San Pedro Sula in November, Eliazar said, “There is still mud everywhere there, everything got knocked down, we lost everything.”
Guatemalan soldiers and police had blocked part of a caravan of as many as 9,000 Honduran migrants Saturday night at a point not far from where they entered the country, seeking to reach the U.S. border.