The caravan of several thousand migrants advancing through the state of Chiapas took over the main customs office in southern Mexico on Wednesday to pressure immigration authorities to give them transit permits through the country.
After camping for several days in the southern town of Huixtla, some 3,000 migrants moved to the Center for Comprehensive Attention to Border Transit (Caift) where they blocked the four channels of the federal highway, affecting hundreds of trucks, buses and cars seeking to arrive. to the border with Guatemala or enter Mexican territory.
The customs office remains guarded by around twenty National Guard agents with anti-riot equipment who made no attempt to evict the group.
Activist Irineo Mújica, from the non-governmental organization Pueblo Sin Fronteras, which called the caravan, regretted that the National Migration Institute (INM) does not provide foreigners with transit permits to advance safely through Mexico.
“We know that we are inconveniencing the Mexican people and we apologize, but organized crime is also kidnapping us, killing us,” Mújica said when justifying the customs blockade.
“We have no answer and (they say) they are not going to give papers. The idea is to get to the United States because a better future awaits us there for the children, the truth is that we do it for them,” said Honduran Herson Fernández between sobs. , who is traveling with his wife and three children, admitting that he no longer has money and is desperate to advance towards the northern border.
The caravan, made up mostly of Central Americans, Venezuelans and Cubans, left the border city of Tapachula at the beginning of last week with about 5,000 people, but due to the lack of response from the authorities for the delivery of transit permits Some 2,000 foreigners have chosen to leave the group and continue the route on their own.
For three days the group traveled 45 kilometers and in the middle of last week they stopped in Huixtla, where a dozen migrants protested by sewing their lips and burning piñatas with the face of the head of the INM, Francisco Garduño, to demand attention. So far they have not had a response.
In recent months, a growing wave of migration has been recorded on Mexico’s southern border. By October, the Mexican Refugee Aid Commission registered 127,000 applicants, a figure almost similar to the record that was reached in 2021 when, in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, there were 129,000 requests throughout the year.
