Hundreds of migrants, mostly Haitians, organized a new caravan that left Tapachula, Chiapas on Saturday morning 28.After a long 41 -kilometer walk, at least 300 of them reached the municipality of Huixtla, where they spent the night.During the journey they were harassed by a deployment of the National Guard, National Institute of Migration (INM) and Army.The eve of the beginning of the march, and also from Chiapas, the Secretary of Defense, General Luis Crescencio Sandoval, said that the main objective of the military deployed on the southern border was "to stop migration".
No caravan has been successful since January 2019, when 13 thousand resident cards were delivered for humanitarian reasons on the border with Guatemala and a small group of more than a thousand Central Americans arrived at Piedras Negras, Coahuila, in the line with EU.Since then, all attempts have been aborted by the National Guard and even by the Guatemala army.
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Who are part of the caravan?
According to the Human Rights Observation and Monitoring Collective in the Mexican Southeast, at least a thousand people joined the caravan, which departed from Tapachula, Chiapas, in the morning.There are also people from Central America, Venezuela and Equatorial Guinea.Among the members are families and even unaccompanied minors.Many have been trapped in southern Mexico for months without abandoning Tapachula.
The majority group, the Haitian, comes from a country marked by violence, poverty and natural disasters.Last month its president Jovenel Moïse was killed and subsequently an earthquake of 7 was recorded.2 degrees that caused dozens of dead.Most of the people who are on the route come from Chile, Colombia and Brazil, where they worked for ten years, when they received visas after the 2010 earthquake in which more than 200 thousand people died.The objective of many Haitians is to reach Tijuana, Baja California, where a colony has been established since at least 2017.
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What happens in Tapachula?
From the agreement between Andrés Manuel López Obrador and former President Donald Trump to stop migration in June 2019, Tapachula is one of the key points to prevent the transit of foreigners to the northern border.There is a good part of the deployment of the National Guard dedicated exclusively to close the flow of migrants. In addition, it is the city in which a greater number of asylum applicants are received.In what we have been in 2021, the Mexican Commission for Refugee Aid (Comar) received 64 thousand 378 protection applications.Of these, 45 thousand 072 were processed in Tapachula.The forecast is to exceed the 100,000 asylum seekers, which would be a record above 70 thousand of 2019.Before the Pandemia by COVID-19 the deadline for each procedure to be resolved was 45 days with an extension of another 45, but there is currently no limit.On several occasions the region has been forced to close its facilities due to coronavirus sprouts, since applicants spend hours overwhelmed outside the offices.Currently, if someone wants to ask asylum receives an appointment for the month of January.Thousands of international protection applicants have been abandoned in Tapachula, without documents and under the threat of being arrested in a migratory raid.
Why the caravan precisely now?
The protests have been carrying out since last Monday 23.According to the Human Rights Observation and Monitoring Collective in the Mexican Southeast there are three elements that have meant the drop that filled the vessel: the delay in administrative processes to submit refuge request, the detention and deportation of people who have documentation,to which it is forbidden to leave Tapachula, and the arrests and returns express to Guatemala.
Activists consulted by Animal Politor."
“Given the lack of response from the Mexican authorities, migrants decided to organize to leave in Tapachula caravan with the aim of reaching places outside Chiapas, where it is possible to access decent conditions, obtain employment, among others.Many of them have regular stay documents in Mexico that guarantee the right to free traffic in the country, ”said the monitoring group in a statement.
What happened during the first day?
The caravan traveled the route between Tapachula and Huixtla, 41 kilometers.Under intense rain, families were harassed by INM officers, National Guard and Army.An indeterminate number of people was arrested.Migrants have denounced that they were not transferred to any immigration station, but that they were expelled to the border with Guatemala.
“The elements of the security forces formed riot teams to close the passage and encapsulate the caravan, beginning to stop people making excessive and illegitimate use of the force.The people were dispersed, ran by entering the mountains or through the river;Others continued advancing on the road.For several hours, in the rain and starting the night, the operation continued to assault and stop the members of the caravan.People with injuries and wounds derived from the aggressions of the INM, the GN and the Army were documented, and medical care was scarce and late.Family separation situations were also documented, ”explained the monitoring group.
Among the images that were filmed, that of a group of national guards who push a man who carries with a baby in his arms or that of an INM agent trying to step on the head of a migrant who is already on the ground.Migrant rights defense groups have filed complaints before the National Human Rights Commission (CNDH).
Finally, about 500 people managed to meet in Huixtla, where they spent the night.The members of the caravan, exhausted, spent the night in spite of having the wet clothes for the rain.
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And now, what will happen?
A group of about 500 people, many of them family nuclei, walk along the Costa de Chiapas road.After Saturday's events, many are exhausted and have a long way ahead.We will have to wait to see what is the response of the INM, National Guard and Army, although on previous occasions they took advantage of tiredness to encapsulate and detain migrants.Human Rights groups monitor the caravan to monitor the treatment that families receive.
