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A new caravan with some 600 migrants, the eighth to be formed in southern Mexico during August, departed Wednesday afternoon from the city of Tapachula, bordering Guatemala, heading for the neighboring state of Oaxaca, under heavy rain.
The group of migrants left Tapachula and headed towards the city of Oaxaca, the capital of the state of the same name, which has become the main arrival point for foreigners in order to obtain their temporary permits.
Some migrants, including children and women, used plastic bags, umbrellas, thermal sheets, cardboard, and their own clothes to cover themselves from the intense rains that afflict the region.
This is the eighth migrant caravan formed during August, and one of the smallest, considering that the previous ones had an average of approximately 1,000 people. The members of the caravan are looking for temporary visas, since in the city of Tapachula, state of Chiapas, the authorities of the National Migration Institute (INM) do not have the forms of the Multiple Migratory Forms (FMM) for migrants to carry out their procedures.
Because of this, the only and closest option they have to arrive by their own means is Oaxaca.
“We are not criminals, we are working people!” shouted the migrants during their departure, which took place from the central park of Tapachula, to go to the Tapachula-Tepanatepec highway, Oaxaca.
The migrants, among them from countries such as Bangladesh, Venezuela, Honduras, Cuba, China, Haiti, Ecuador, Peru, and Nicaragua, and from African countries, carried two banners on which they wrote “We want free transit, we are migrants, Mexico let us pass, support us, migrating is not a crime it is a right, we want free transit.”
Venezuelan Eri Coronado told EFE that they are not criminals and that they are only asking for free passage to reach the United States, in peace, but the police do not let them pass.
“We leave in caravan because the INM stops us at every moment on public transport and takes us to a checkpoint —called Migratory Station Siglo XXI— where they detain us for 2, 3 or 4 days and send us back,” she said.
Meanwhile, Melisa Bolaños, a migrant from Ecuador, emphasized that they have left their country because the escalating prices of basic necessities and gasoline have risen too high and everything has collapsed and there is no work.
“We come from the jungle, it is very hard to cross there, and they make a caravan, and we unite and go all together, and God willing we are protected all the way,” she said.
Her compatriot Pablo Farias said that poverty and scarcity continue to increase and everything goes up, so a basic salary is not enough.
“We do not come to do harm, we come in peace, to improve our lives and because we want better opportunities,” said Farias.
Dozens of migrants have organized and managed to evade checkpoints to continue walking along the roadside, as Mexican authorities have launched operations to secure people transiting irregularly through the Mexico-Guatemala border zone.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has intercepted more than 1.7 million migrants so far in the fiscal year 2022 (since last October).
