Migrant caravan pauses due to deteriorating health of its members

Thousands of migrants of a caravan moving towards the center of Mexico they will rest one day before the deteriorating health of dozens of its members, mainly children, said one of the organizers on Saturday, while authorities asked that they not risk their lives.

The caravan, which has been traveling for a week, has so far advanced nearly 100 kilometers since it left Tapachula, border town with Guatemala, and you still have to travel just over 1,000 kilometers to reach your destination Mexico City.

“You do not play with people’s health and lives, regardless of their immigration status,” said the Migration’s national institute (INM) in a statement where it also insisted on its proposal to grant visitor cards for humanitarian reasons that will allow migrants to live in various regions of the country within shelters.

The institution recalled that they have buses and food for foreigners who voluntarily choose to be transferred to where they can receive the document.

On the eve, leaders of the caravan rejected the government’s proposal after warning that in the past they have not kept promises to members of similar mobilizations that even managed to reach border cities between Mexico and the United States.

Luis Villagrán, one of the leaders of the caravan, told Reuters that they will not stop, on the contrary assured that they will rest one day in Mapstepec, a town belonging to the southern state Chiapas, while recovering from fatigue and some injuries. “We continue on Monday,” he said.

However, he admitted that many of those affected are women and children. “There are more than 150 boys and girls who can no longer walk. There are pregnant women with sores on their feet who can no longer walk, we estimate that there are 90 women in critical condition,” said Villagrán.

One of the main complaints from migrants, which generated the new mobilization, was that they had waited for months in Tapachula without attention from mainly immigration authorities, which even led hundreds of Haitians to seek help in border municipalities such as Tijuana and Monterrey.