Guatemala ups pressure on caravan
VADO HONDO, Guatemala — Guatemalan security forces on Monday cleared a road of hundreds of people in a mostly Honduran migrant caravan that had camped out overnight when authorities barred it from advancing toward the United States.
The Guatemalan government said the road in the eastern part of the country reopened to traffic after troops with batons and plastic shields closed in on the migrants just beyond the village of Vado Hondo, about 50 kilometers from border crossings into Honduras and El Salvador.
With soldiers looking on, groups of migrants, many with young children and carrying bags and luggage, then waited in lines to board buses returning them to the El Florido border crossing with Honduras, video footage on social media showed.
The removal of the large group was the latest effort by Guatemalan authorities to break up the caravan, which authorities said numbered close to 8,000 people, within hours of its departure for the US from Honduras last week.
About 2,000 of the migrants installed themselves on the road after they clashed with Guatemalan security forces on Sunday during a failed effort to make their way past them.
As the migrants retreated before the advancing security forces on Monday, several threw stones at police. The officers responded with tear gas as they attempted to drive the group back toward the Honduran border, clearing the road for trucks.
Some people were injured as troops forced the crowd from the road, said Andres Gomez, a Guatemalan in the caravan.
Ruben Tellez, a spokesman for Guatemala’s military, defended the use of force, describing it as minimal and proportionate.
“Their right to migrate is being respected so long as they prove that their entry into the country complies with migratory and sanitary requirements,” Tellez said, referring to valid identification documents as well as a negative COVID-19 test in the past 48 hours.
Alternative routes
After the clearance, groups of migrants went back into Vado Hondo looking for alternative routes, the government said. It was unclear how many were turning back altogether.
Many of the migrants say they are fleeing poverty and violence in a region rocked by the coronavirus pandemic and two devastating hurricanes in November.
Late on Sunday, Guatemalan authorities said they had sent more than 1,500 migrants back home since Friday, most of them to Honduras.
The confrontation with the migrant caravan, the first of 2021, occurred as US President-elect Joe Biden prepares to take office on Wednesday. He has pledged more humane migration policies than President Donald Trump, who favored a hard-line approach.
Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador on Monday warned migrants not to try to enter countries by force, and said he was in touch with both the outgoing and incoming US administrations over the migrant caravan.
Lopez Obrador said he was hopeful that Biden would carry out an immigration reform and work with Mexico and Central America on a plan that could provide alternatives to migration.
The head of the Honduran border police, Julian Hernandez, said more than 800 security officials tried to stop the caravan at the Guatemalan border, but migrants pushed through the barrier, some using children “as shields”.
“We weren’t there with our arms folded,” he said.
More than a dozen caravans, some with thousands of migrants, have set off from Honduras since October 2018, but all have run up against thousands of US border guards and soldiers under Trump.