Mexican authorities disintegrated this Friday a caravan of migrants that had left the night before from the city of Tapachula, in the southern state of Chiapas, with the intention of reaching the country’s northern border, the government reported.
The contingent, which includes Central Americans, Venezuelans and Haitians, was surprised by a deployment of immigration agents and the National Guard around 5 am local time, in a property near a highway while they were sleeping, official sources said.
In a first maneuver, the agents identified a group of 281 migrants, while in a parallel action on secondary roads of the perimeter a second group of 38 foreigners was located, detailed the National Migration Institute (INM) it’s a statement.
The migrants, who advanced just 15 km, participated on Thursday in a march through the central streets of Tapachula demanding that the authorities allow them to travel freely to the United States.
The activist Luis García Villagrán, organizer of these caravans, blamed the INM for causing the exodus by not resolving in time the procedures of the foreigners, who seek to regularize their immigration status in Mexico.
“They beat women and children and put them on the buses,” he told AFP, condemning the security operation.
The detainees were transferred by bus to migratory headquarters of the entity, where their situation is reviewed, while those who travel as a family remain under the tutelage of social assistance authorities, detailed the INM.
The Mexican government has reinforced operations to combat the irregular flow of migrants who, on their journey through the country, face numerous dangers such as stalking by criminals, as well as human traffickers who transport them in subhuman conditions.
On December 9, a trailer carrying 160 irregular migrants crashed into a pedestrian bridge on a highway in Chiapas (south), leaving 56 deceased, mostly Guatemalans.
More than 190,000 people without papers were detected in Mexico between January and September 2021, triple the number in 2020. Some 74,300 have been deported.
rrg
