BIDEN TEAM URGES MIGRANT CARAVAN TO ABANDON TRIP

VADO HONDO Guatemalan security forces on Sunday used sticks and tear gas to beat back a large migrant caravan bound for the united States, just days before the advent of a new u.s. administration, which urged travellers to abandon the journey.

Between 7,000 and 8,000 migrants, including families with young children, have entered Guatemala since Friday, authorities say, fleeing poverty and violence in a region hammered by the coronavirus pandemic and back-to-back hurricanes.

The caravan was met by around 3,000 Guatemalan security officials mustered in the village of Vado Hondo in eastern Guatemala.

The tough response suggests that democratic president-elect Joe Biden may initially benefit from the hard-line policies of outgoing republican President donald Trump.

Video footage shared by the Guatemalan government showed hundreds of migrants pressing into a wall of security forces, which used sticks to repel the surge. An unspecified number of people have been injured, authorities said.

during the melee, security forces fired off a tear-gas canister, a reuters photographer said.

Between Friday and Saturday, Guatemala had sent back almost 1,000 migrants entering from Honduras, the Guatemalan government said, as the caravan tried to advance toward Mexico.