On the caravan trail, strenuous conditions affect migrants
On the caravan trail, strenuous conditions affect migrants
PIJIJIAPAN, Mexico. On a recent afternoon, Jorge del Cid pushed a stroller, where his exhausted 6-year-old son, Gabriel, was sleeping along a narrow stretch of road that he hopes will take them to the US. UU., More than 1,000 miles away.
He is one of Thousands of Central American migrants. those who endure enormous difficulties, armed with little more than their faith in God, while they march on Highway 200 in southern Mexico.
During the day, they sometimes walk more than 25 miles under the heat of a tropical sun. At night, they endure torrential rains under flimsy tarps, leaving many soaked. Some give up every day and ask the authorities to return them to Honduras, reducing a caravan that reached a maximum of approximately 7,000 people.
A truck takes the migrants heading to the United States border near Pijijiapan, southern Mexico, on Friday.
Photo:
Arias Guillermo / Agence France-Presse / Getty Images
Mr. del Cid, a thin Honduran construction worker with a straw hat, estimates that he has pushed the stroller 500 miles since leaving his hometown of San Pedro Sula. As his son is with him, he says, he hopes that the authorities of the United States will let him into the country, where he hopes to find a well-paying job.
While speaking, a small truck stops and a crowd of young people advance and climb aboard. Most migrants are able to get hooked for long periods of time, but not Mr. del Cid. "Since I have a baby stroller, when I try to climb, everyone gets on, and I do not succeed," he says.
"I am a single father, and he has lived with me all his life," says Mr. del Cid, referring to his son. "I'm his only support." He has a sister in Santa Ana, California, he says, who will help them.
"God willing, everything will be fine," he says, as he resumes his hike along the highway near Mexico's southern Pacific coast, which passes through farms and cattle villages, mango tree groves and lush green fields.
The road is full of all kinds of people: an old man with a urostomy bag, families with parents who push strollers or small children on their shoulders, recent deportees from the US. UU., Pregnant women, a retinue of white-faced clowns. and baggy orange pants, groups of young men in backpacks and baseball caps.
The migrant caravan has traveled an average of 43 miles per day since it left. San Pedro Sula on October 12.. There are approximately 2,800 miles from San Pedro Sula to Tijuana, the declared destination of the caravan, on the California border, the distance from San Francisco to New York City. At the closest entry points from southern Mexico, Reynosa and Matamoros along the Texas border, it is a 1,400-mile trip, the equivalent of Dallas to Washington, D.C.
Honduran migrants leave the city of Mapastepec in southern Mexico on Thursday morning. The caravan departed for the first time from San Pedro Sula, Honduras, on October 12.
Photo:
Miguel Juarez Lugo / Zuma Press
At the speed at which the caravan is heading, it would take 23 more days of walking to reach the Texas border. In case they take a road to the California border, they would need at least another 30 days, unless more people can travel by car or train.
"They are survivors, they just focus on moving forward and not looking back," said Rubén Figueroa, a human rights activist with the Mesoamerican Migrant Movement, a defense group.
Brenda Chirinos, 37, left home in the Honduran capital of Tegucigalpa with a blue backpack with two pants, three shirts, some underwear and a small bag with a deodorant, toothbrush, comb and soap. The shoes he wears are his only pair.
"I wash underwear every two days," she says. Migrants use sources in the villages where they camp to wash. Their clothes are left to dry outdoors until they come out again. Another migrant, José Pineda, 22, says that their lives are like those of Jesus Christ and his disciples: "I am the owner of the clothes I wear now," he says with a chuckle.
A Honduran woman washes her 3-year-old daughter in a stream in Pijijiapan, Mexico, on Thursday.
Photo:
adrees latif / Reuters
It is a grueling daily routine, and many migrants, especially those with small children, can not stand the pace. Many leave and seek help from the authorities to take them back to Honduras, where most of them come from. The Mexican government said that at the last minute of Wednesday there are 3,630 people in the caravan, although local mayors put the number as high as 6,000.
On Tuesday, in the southern city of Huixtla, some 200 immigrants asked for help from the Mexican authorities to return home. "I miss my two children," said Orlando Gonzalez, an agricultural worker who left two children, ages 6 and 4. "I came for them, but I need them too." Another 80 left the caravan the next day. One night of torrential rains in the city of Mapastepec, said the mayor Karla Valdenegro.
Under the downpour, Pablo Ballesteros, a member of Personas Sin Fronteras, the defense group that coordinates the march, said his path would be determined day by day, depending on which cities provide shelter and assistance. "If you have children, it's very difficult," said Mr. Ballesteros, as hundreds of migrants took refuge from a downpour under an open-air rooftop auditorium. "There are many who will not succeed."
Central American immigrants walk along the highway in Ciudad Hidalgo, Mexico, on Friday.
Photo:
Carlos Garcia Rawlins / Reuters
The immigrants have received help from the Catholic Church, which has organized food and medical care in all the cities where the immigrants have stopped. Evangelical churches and municipal governments on their route have also offered support and consolation. Along the way, most Mexican citizens have rolled out the welcome mat. At the entrance of the towns along the route, churches set up tables where volunteers deliver everything from bottles and plastic bags filled with water, to baby food and taco lunches, rice and beans. Along the highway, migrants pass through piles of donated second-hand clothes. "We distributed 160 plates of tortillas, rice and beans on Tuesday," says Rafael Gómez, owner of a small restaurant in Huixtla. "The people who have less are the people who are giving more."
At the kiosk in the central plaza of Huixtla, volunteers from the Church of the Nazarene offered food and medical help. A short distance away, people lined up to eat tacos provided by the municipal government. "Huixtla is a city that knows how to give without asking for anything in return," said a spokesman through a megaphone, announcing that lunch had been served.
Nearby, ambulances from the Mexican Red Cross treated the migrants, mainly because of foot blisters and dehydration. Mayor José Luis Laparra said the local government will spend around $ 9,000 on food, water, security and cleaning services.
The migrants gathered for a meeting at the plaza in Pijijiapan, Chiapas state, where they stopped to camp on Thursday night.
Photo:
Rebecca Blackwell / Associated Press
In the city of Tapachula, near the border with Guatemala, local authorities disbursed nearly $ 11,000 for food, water, medical assistance and cleanup of the main plaza, where garbage piles accumulated after migrants camped there on Sunday. said a local official.
"This is a great challenge for the cities that the caravan goes through," said Miguel Colop, an official with the Guatemalan government's human rights agency in Tecun Umán, right at the border crossing where thousands of migrants crossed into Mexico illegally. Friday and Saturday. . "Most of them are overwhelmed by this human wave, and that's one of the reasons why the caravan can not be in one place for a long time.
Taking a break on the side of the road that leads to Pijijiapan, José Martínez, an employee of an unemployed transport company, said he was making the trip with his daughter, her husband and their two-year-old son, Fabián.
"You sleep on the floor, you take turns sleeping to make sure nothing bad happens and we take turns taking our grandson," he said. "Our mission is to arrive, walk or get walks, but we will arrive". He paused and then added, as almost everyone here does, "God willing."
Early on Friday morning, migrants began to leave Pijijiapan to begin the next leg of punishment for their trip, to the city of Arriaga, 63 miles away. On Thursday night, about 200 immigrants danced in the town square while they played reggaeton music from the balcony of the mayor's office. Ronald Gomez, 21, hopes to reach the United States and work as an electrician or barber. "God willing, it's my dream," he said as he prepared to take the road again.
Migrants in the caravan resting in the main plaza of Pijijiapan on Thursday.
Photo:
Arias Guillermo / Agence France-Presse / Getty Images
Write to José de Córdoba in jose.decordoba@wsj.com and Juan Montes in juan.montes@wsj.com
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