2,000 migrants continue walk through Mexico

HUEHUETAN, Mexico — A group of 2,000 mainly Central American migrants continued its mass exodus Sunday from the southern Mexico city of Tapachula, reaching a town about 16 miles away.

Migrants walked in the early morning, starting out before dawn, to avoid the burning heat. Mostly from Honduras and El Salvador, many of the migrants were accompanied by children.

By midday on the second day of their march the migrants reached the town of Huehuetan, in southern Chiapas state.

Unlike previous marches, the one that started Saturday from Tapachula did not include as many Haitian migrants, thousands of whom reached the U.S. border around Del Rio, Texas, in September.

Tens of thousands of migrants from Honduras, El Salvador and Haiti have been waiting in Tapachula, near the border with Guatemala, for refugee or asylum papers that might allow them to travel, but have grown tired of delays in the process.

On the first day of their march, the migrants pushed past a line of state police who were trying to stop them. There were minor scuffles and a child suffered a slight head wound.

Police, immigration agents and National Guard have broken up smaller attempts at similar breakouts earlier this year. In August, National Guard troops blocked several hundred Haitians, Cubans and Central Americans who set out walking on a highway from Tapachula.

Mexico requires migrants applying for humanitarian visas or asylum to remain in the border state of Chiapas, next to Guatemala, for their cases to be processed.

In January, a larger caravan of migrants tried to leave Honduras but was blocked from crossing Guatemala.

MARCO UGARTE/AP A caravan of migrants heads north Sunday along a coastal highway outside Huehuetan, Mexico.