Honduran migrant group grows, heading for
United States
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[October 15, 2018]
TEGUCIGALPA (Reuters) - A growing
group of more than 1,500 Honduran migrants headed for the United States
moved toward the Guatemalan border on Sunday, witnesses and organizers
said.
The migrants, who included families of adults and children, and women
carrying babies, began a march on Saturday from the violent northern
city of San Pedro Sula, days after U.S. Vice President Mike Pence called
on Central America to stop mass migration.
The U.S. Embassy in Honduras said it was deeply worried about the group
and that people were being given "false promises" of being able to enter
the United States. The embassy said the situation in Honduras was
improving.
Honduras' government echoed part of that language, saying it regretted
the situation and that citizens were being "deceived."
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Mexico's government issued a statement on Saturday reminding foreign
nationals that visas should be requested in consulates, not at the
border, and said migration rules were "always observed."
March organizer Bartolo Fuentes told Reuters that participants were not
being offered or promised anything but were fleeing poverty and violence
back home.
Fuentes, a former Honduran lawmaker, said the group had grown on its
journey to some 1,800 migrants from 1,300.
The so-called migrant caravan, in which people move in groups either on
foot or by vehicle, grew in part because of social media.
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Thousands of Hondurans fleeing poverty and violence move in a
caravan toward the United States, in Santa Rosa de Copan, Honduras
October 14, 2018. REUTERS/ Jorge Cabrera
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The group began to arrive in Nueva Ocotepeque, near the Guatemalan
border, on Sunday. The plan is to cross Guatemala and reach
Tapachula in southern Mexico to apply for humanitarian visas that
allow people to cross the country or get asylum, Fuentes said.
Honduras, where some 64 percent of households are in poverty, is
afflicted by gangs that violently extort people and businesses.
Last week, Pence told Central American countries that the United
States was willing to help with economic development and investment
if they did more to tackle mass migration, corruption and gang
violence.
(Reporting by Gustavo Palencia; Editing by Peter Cooney)
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