Up to 15,000 may join largest ever migrant caravan to walk through Mexico to US

Liozanys Comeja credit her survival to her teacup chihuahua, Mia. Originally from Venezuela, Comeja moved to Colombia 5 years in the past, however determined to go away her new life behind this month due to the rising price of dwelling. She crossed the Darien Gap, a infamous stretch of jungle between Colombia and Panama, with Mia tucked in her backpack, finally making her method throughout eight nations. Now, Comeja is hoping the canine will assist her make it through the grueling closing leg of their journey.

Comeja has joined about 11,000 others who on Monday will go away Tapachula, a sweltering metropolis on the Mexico-Guatemala border, and head north for the United States. It will depart as leaders from throughout the hemisphere collect in Los Angeles for the Summit of the Americas.

“Whenever I get discouraged, Mia calms me down,” Comeja mentioned. When they arrive on the US border, Comeja plans to cross the Rio Grande on foot.

This just isn’t the primary migrant caravan to go away Tapachula, nevertheless it may be the largest ever recorded in Mexico: its numbers are anticipated to swell within the coming days, and may attain 15,000 folks – plus Mia the chihuahua.

“This is the largest mass human migration I have seen in at least the past 10 years,” mentioned Luís Villagrán, an organizer of the caravan and director of the non-profit Center for Human Dignification.

Nearly 70% of its members are girls and youngsters, aged between infants to folks of their 70s, mentioned Villagrán. Huddled collectively for defense, they intention to walk your complete size of Mexico. Most have just one pair of sneakers; some, simply plastic flip-flops. The street they’ll journey, often known as the coastal route, may be tough to traverse due to mudslides left behind by Hurricane Agatha, in addition to the overbearing presence of the solar.

The largest variety of migrants within the caravan come from Venezuela, Cuba and Nicaragua – three nations whose authoritarian rulers Joe Biden has conspicuously refused to invite to the summit. But there are additionally Haitians, Salvadorans, Hondurans, Guatemalans and even residents of India, Bangladesh, and several other African nations.

Earlier this month, the Mexican National Migration Institute (INM), wrote to Villagrán, expressing sympathy for the caravan’s members and pledging to assist probably the most weak amongst them. The letter additionally acknowledges that the caravan is a results of the gorgeous tsunami of migration from almost each nation within the Americas to the United States up to now few years, attributing this migration to elevated charges of violence and financial instability within the continent.

It is a hanging response from the leaders of a paperwork that migrants typically describe as routinely unhelpful and even intentionally dysfunctional.

But the letter additionally marks the primary time the Mexican authorities has responded to a caravan earlier than its departure, and may sign a shift in how the authorities reply to massive teams of migrants.

“Immigration is used as a political tool. These women and children are like coins to be exchanged. It’s very possible [Mexican President Andrés Manuel López] Obrador wants to use this caravan to look like a humanitarian before the Summit of the Americas,” Villagrán mentioned.

But caravan members are effectively conscious of the potential risks they face. In current months, Mexico’s National Guard has turn out to be more and more violent in its response to migrants. When Villagrán led a smaller caravan in April, he was crushed and several other of his enamel had been cracked by National Guard troops.

In Tapachula, the National Guard is routinely used to corral, detain, and teargas unruly teams of migrants in entrance of town’s INM workplace, the place folks typically look ahead to weeks or months for the humanitarian visa wanted to go away town.

On Tuesday, hundreds gathered at Tapachula’s metropolis middle to write their names on an inventory that Villagrán would submit to INM to safe visas for the group. At one level, an altercation broke out as migrants apprehensive others would get to the record earlier than them, and they’d be left behind.

Before they depart, Villagrán and the migrants are demanding humanitarian visas be given instantly, so the group can cross through migration checkpoints with out being arrested or attacked by Mexican National Guard, as occurred in April. Anyone trying to cross through one of many checkpoints with no visa is distributed again to Tapachula and compelled to wait months for papers that may by no means come.

Over the previous three months, migrants have poured into Tapachula’s parks and shelters at twice or thrice the earlier charge. Migrant shelters that when housed not more than 400 folks are actually accommodating almost 2,000. Bathrooms overflow, meals dwindles till it is only one scoop of beans, and migrants sleep within the hallways, or on unfold out sweatshirts within the jungle.

Grace, one other traveller from Venezuela, mentioned she solely hoped that her five-year-old daughter, Bláiche, wouldn’t keep in mind the scenes they’d lived through within the crowded shelter.

“Of course I’m joining the caravan! I’m leaving as quickly as I can,” she mentioned. “This place is a trap.”

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