Some 400 migrants leave in caravan to the U.S. from northern Honduras

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – A group of some 400 Honduran migrants left Tuesday, March 30, for the Corinto point, bordering Guatemala, as part of a caravan heading towards the United States, despite the risks of the journey and the measures announced by Guatemalan authorities to contain the mobilization.

The migrants left on foot from the Gran Central Metropolitana, the main bus terminal in San Pedro Sula, north of the country, the second-largest Honduran city, with an extended flag of their country in blue and white and singing the national anthem.

The group gathered Monday night at the bus terminal with the idea of leaving in a caravan. However, it was not clear whether they would go through Corinto or Agua Caliente, another border point with Guatemala.

In the mobilization, which left around 04.00 local time, there are children -some unaccompanied-, women and men.

“We are leaving because we lost everything, some because of the (coronavirus) pandemic and others because of the floods (caused by) storms Eta and Iota (last November),” said one of the migrants who did not identify himself by name.

He said he is with two children and a brother, and they come from the department of Francisco Morazán, where Tegucigalpa, the Honduran capital, is located.

Since March 2020, when the Covid-19 pandemic began to spread in Honduras, 4,585 people have died, while some 188,000 have been infected, according to figures from the state-run National Risk Management System (Sinager).

Since February, the caravan of migrants has been promoted on social networks, a modality that began in October 2018 in San Pedro Sula, who hope to reach the United States, even though migration authorities of that country, as well as Guatemala and Mexico, have warned that they will not allow the entry of people who move in an irregular manner.

On Monday, the government of Guatemala announced a state of prevention in five of the country’s 22 departments to contain the caravan’s possible arrival.

Government Decree 3-2021 ordering the state of prevention given the “risk of displacement of groups of people with migrant characteristics” was signed by the Guatemalan president, Alejandro Giammattei, and the vice president, Guillermo Castillo, and the council of state ministers.

The arrival of the expected migrant caravan “would generate a citizen security crisis upon its entry into the country or circulation within it, aggravating the related epidemiological health emergency”, said the regulation, which will be published on Tuesday in the official media.

According to the Guatemalan government, the migrant caravan and the pandemic could endanger “the population and authorities of Guatemala, including the migrants themselves, who must also be protected”.