Migrant caravan fragments as hundreds return to the road
MEXICO CITY: The caravan of Central American migrants whose trek toward the United States became a hot-button issue in the US mid-term elections fragmented Friday as hundreds left Mexico City to resume their journey.
Around 5,500 migrants had been camped out in a shelter set up at the weekend inside a stadium in the capital.
But several hundred in the group decided to hit the road again at dawn, while the remainder chose to wait in hopes that someone would provide them buses, at least for the elderly and those traveling with small children.
The caravan set out on Oct 13 from San Pedro Sula, Honduras, and has covered more than 1,600 kilometers so far.
Along the way, it has drawn a flurry of vitriolic tweets from US President Donald Trump, who sought to mobilise his conservative base with antiimmigrant rhetoric ahead of Tuesday’s elections, in which his Republican party lost control of the House of Representatives.
Hitch-hiking and walking, often in plastic shoes or flip-flops, the migrants still have up to 2,800 kilometers to walk to the border, if they take the safest route — to Tijuana.
Most of those who packed their meager belongings and set out again before sunrise were young men, though there were some families, too.
“We couldn’t just wait there. People just kept spreading lies, saying someone was going to give us buses.
“We were hungry and cold,” said Socorro Diaz, a 32-year-old Honduran woman traveling with her two children, ages four and seven.
Mexico City authorities provided a subway train to give the group a free ride to the last stop on the line. From there, they headed to the highway toward the city of Queretaro, 220 kilometers away.
“Thank you, Mexico!” they shouted as they streamed out of the subway. — AFP