Enfermedad, miedo y acoso merman caravana migrantes

Sickness, Fear, Harassment in Mexico Whittle Away at Caravan

HUIXTLA, MÉXICO (AP) — Poco a poco, las enfermedades, el miedo y el acoso policial están mermando la caravana de migrantes que viaja hacia la frontera de Estados Unidos y muchos de los entre 4.000 y 5.000 que acamparon durante la noche bajo lonas de plástico en una ciudad del sur de México se quejaron de agotamiento.

El grupo, en el que viajan muchos niños e incluso bebés en carritos, tenía previsto salir de Mapastepec al amanecer del jueves para recorrer parte de los más de 1.600 kilómetros (1.000 millas) que tienen por delante para intentar llegar a suelo estadounidense.

Pero en los últimos días, unos cientos aceptaron la oferta del gobierno para llevarlos de vuelta a sus países.

José David Sarmientos Aguilar, un estudiante hondureño de 16 años de San Pedro Sula, era uno de los al menos 80 migrantes que esperaban en la plaza de Huixtla, de donde el resto de la comitiva partió el miércoles por la mañana, para tomar uno de los cuatro buses que los llevaría de vuelta a Honduras.

La naturaleza espontánea de la caravana, a la que muchos se sumaron sin pensarlo y rumores sobre migrantes muertos hicieron desistir a Sarmientos Aguilar.

Se unió a la marcha “sin pensar en lo que podría pasar y en las consecuencias que tendría”, apuntó añadiendo que el fallecimiento de una persona que se cayó de un camión el lunes y los rumores de otros dos asesinados en Huixtla, fueron decisivos en su caso.

“Han pasado muchas tragedias, no es necesario ir perdiendo más vidas para llegar allá (Estados Unidos)”, dijo. “Me encuentro un poco mal de salud, del pecho. Tengo tos entonces creo que arriesgarme a que me vaya a enfermar más y que me suceda algo, mejor me regreso a mi casa”.

Carlos Roberto Hernández, de la provincia de Yoro, en Honduras, tenía una tos ronca. Para él, el detonante para dejar marchar la caravana fue el calor abrasador durante el día y las lluvias por la noche.

“Nos cayó una lluvia y desde entonces para acá hemos tenido una gripe”, señaló Hernández. Preguntado por si volvería a intentar llegar a la frontera estadounidense, contestó rotundo: “No. Voy a hacer mi vida en Honduras”.

En el caso de Pedro Arturo Torres, la nostalgia habría quebrado su determinación de llegar a Estados Unidos.

“Uno no sabe el camino que le espera”, manifestó Torres. “Queremos regresar a nuestro país. Que sea que vives con unos frijolitos, pero puedes sobrevivir, con nuestra familia, tranquilos”

La actitud del gobierno federal mexicano también ha sido decisiva para reducir el desgastar a la caravana.

Toda la comida, prendas viejas, agua y medicamentos que se da a los migrantes son donaciones privadas, de grupos religiosos o funcionarios locales que empatizan con ellos.

El ejecutivo mexicano no ha entregado a los migrantes ni una sola comida, baño o botella de agua. Esas consideraciones básicas están reservadas únicamente a quienes solicitaron visas o ser deportados en oficinas de inmigración. Casi 1.700 personas abandonaron la caravana y solicitaron asilo en México, dijeron las autoridades.

Pero en alguna ocasión, la policía federal interfirió en la caravana.

En al menos una ocasión, The Associated Press vio como agentes federales pararon a media docena de camionetas de pasajeros y obligaron a los conductores a echar a los migrantes mientras dejaban a los mexicanos a bordo. Con un clima en el que el calor hace casi imposible caminar a mediodía, este tipo de tácticas podría tener consecuencias sobre la salud de los inmigrantes.

En Mapastepec, donde el grueso del grupo se alojó el miércoles en la noche, parecía que el tamaño de la caravana había disminuido ligeramente. Naciones Unidas estimó a principios de semana que en la marcha participaban 7.000 personas. El ejecutivo mexicano dijo el miércoles que había “aproximadamente 3.630” personas.

Los padres dicen que siguen caminando por el futuro de los hijos y el miedo a lo que podría pasarles si regresan a Honduras, controlado por las pandillas violentas que fueron, a su vez, la razón por la que decidieron irse en primer lugar.

English:

TUIXTLA, MEXICO (AP) — Little by little, sickness, fear and police harassment are whittling down the migrant caravan making its way to the U.S. border, with many of the 4,000 to 5,000 migrants camped overnight under plastic sheeting in a town in southern Mexico complaining of exhaustion.

The group, many with children and even pushing toddlers in strollers, planned to depart Mapastepec at dawn Thursday with more than 1,000 miles still to go before they reach the U.S. border.

But in recent days a few hundred have accepted government offers to bus them back to their home countries.

Jose David Sarmientos Aguilar, a 16-year-old student from San Pedro Sula, Honduras, was one of at least 80 migrants waiting in the town square of Huixtla, where the rest of the caravan departed Wednesday morning, for four buses that would take them back to Honduras.

Sarmientos Aguilar said it was partly the spontaneous nature of the caravan — many people joined on the spur of the moment — as well as the rumors of migrants dying that did him in.

He joined the march “without thinking about what could happen and the consequences it could bring,” he said. He said the death of a migrant who fell off a truck Monday — and vague rumors of two migrants killed in Huixtla — also pushed him to return.

“There have been a lot of tragedies. It’s not necessary to go on losing more lives to reach there (the U.S.),” he said. “I am a little sick in the chest. I have a cough. And so instead of risking getter sicker and something happening to me, it’s better to go home.”

Carlos Roberto Hernandez, of Yoro province in Honduras, has a rumbling cough. For him, it was the scorching heat during the day and the evening rains that led him to drop out.

“We got hit by rain, and ever since then I’ve had a cold,” Hernandez said. Asked if he would make another attempt to reach the U.S., he said emphatically: “No. I’m going to make my life in Honduras.”

For Pedro Arturo Torres, it appeared to be homesickness that broke his determination to reach the U.S.

“We didn’t know what lay ahead,” said Torres. “We want to return to our country, where you can get by — even if just with beans, but you can survive, there with our families, at peace.”

The Mexican federal government’s attitude has also played a role in wearing down the caravan.

All the food, old clothes, water and medicine given to the migrants have come from private citizens, church groups or sympathetic local officials.

The federal government hasn’t given the migrants on the road a single meal, a bathroom or a bottle of water. It has reserved those basic considerations only for migrants who turn themselves in at immigration offices to apply for visas or be deported. Officials say nearly 1,700 migrants have already dropped out and applied for asylum in Mexico.

Sometimes federal police have interfered with the caravan.

In at least one instance, The Associated Press saw federal police officers force a half-dozen passenger vans to pull over and make the drivers kick migrants off, while leaving Mexican passengers aboard. In a climate where heat makes walking nearly impossible at midday, such tactics may eventually take a toll on migrants’ health.

In Mapastepec, where the main group stayed Wednesday night, it appeared the size of the caravan had diminished slightly. The United Nations estimated earlier in the week that about 7,000 people were in the group. The Mexican government gave its own figure Wednesday of “approximately 3,630.”

Parents say they keep going for their children’s futures, and fears of what could happen to them back home in gang-dominated Honduras, which was the main motivation for deciding to leave in the first place.

“They can’t be alone. … There’s always danger,” said Ludin Giron, a Honduran street vendor making the difficult journey with her three young children. “When (gang members) see a pretty girl, they want her for themselves. If they see a boy, they want to get him into drugs.”

Refusing either demand can be deadly. Honduras has a homicide rate of about 43 per 100,000 inhabitants, one of the highest in the world for any country not in open war.

On Wednesday, Giron crammed with her children, 3-year-olds Justin and Nicole and 5-year-old Astrid, into the seat of a motorcycle taxi meant for only two passengers. Also perched on the perilously overcrowded motorbike were Reyna Esperanza Espinosa and her 11-year-old daughter, Elsa Araceli.

Espinosa, a tortilla maker from Cortes, Honduras, said there was no work back home. “That’s why we decided to come here, to give a better future for our children,” she said.

Such caravans have taken place regularly, if on a smaller scale, over the years, but U.S. President Donald Trump has seized on the phenomenon this year and made it a rallying call for his Republican base ahead of the Nov. 6 midterm elections.

Trump has blamed Democrats for what he says are weak immigration laws, and he claimed that MS-13 gang members and unknown “Middle Easterners” were hiding among the migrants. He later acknowledged there was “no proof” of the claim Middle Easterners were in the crowd. But he tweeted Wednesday that the U.S. “will never accept people coming into our Country illegally!”

Associated Press journalists traveling with the caravan have met throngs of Hondurans, as well as Guatemalans, Salvadorans and Nicaraguans, but no one from the Mideast. Many were young people traveling with their families. Again and again, they cited poverty and violence in their countries as reasons for leaving.

Another, smaller caravan earlier this year dwindled greatly as it passed through Mexico, with only about 200 making it to the California border. Those who do make it into the U.S. face a hard time being allowed to stay. U.S. authorities do not consider poverty, which many cite as a reason for migrating, in processing asylum applications.