Migrants eye town near Gulf of Mexico

MATIAS ROMERO, MEXICO — The main caravan of Central American migrants spent a raindrenched night outside before continuing their slow walk through southern Mexico, on a path that is taking them toward the Gulf of Mexico and the U.S. border.

It remains unclear whether the caravan — the first of four that has formed — would make a turn east to Mexico City, or try to reach the nearest and most dangerous stretch of border, which lies almost directly north.

It also remained unclear how many would make it; 20 days of scorching heat, constant walking, chills, rain and illness had taken their toll. Mexico’s Interior Department said Thursday nearly 3,000 of the migrants have applied for refuge in Mexico and hundreds more have returned home. At its peak, the caravan had about 7,000 people.

Honduran migrant Saul Guzman, 48, spent the night under a tin roof in the Oaxaca state town of Matias Romero with his son Dannys, 12, before setting out for the town of Donaji, 47 kilometres north. “I have been through a lot,” said Guzman. “I want to spend my time differently, not in poverty.”

The only thing he left behind in his hometown is a coffin, either for his mother, who suffers from dementia, “or for me, if I don’t make it,” Guzman said.

The migrants had already made a gruelling 65-kilometre trek from Juchitan, Oaxaca, on Thursday, after they failed to get the bus transportation they had hoped for.