Politics

Mexico vaccinates Honduran migrants against Covid on southern border

Tapachula, Mexico, Sep 8 (EFE).- About 150 Honduran migrants were vaccinated against Covid-19 on Wednesday in the Mexican town of Tapachula, an operation witnessed by Honduran first lady Ana Garcia.

Accompanied by several Honduran officials, Garcia said that her visit was so she could become familiar with the situation of the migrants in Mexican territory and to obtain better information to be able to help such people.

“We are not unaware that migration is a constant. It’s part of history and in the particular case of Honduras, as well as Central America and Mexico, we are sending and receiving nations,” she said.

Garcia said that in recent months on the southern border of Honduras she had also seen migrants from Haiti, Cuba and other countries and added that her visit to Tapachula, in Mexico’s Chiapas state, was to better get to know what is causing this wave of migration and thus be able to take better measures to deal with it.

“There are situations that are part of the structural causes of migration like economic issues, the pandemic,” as well as last year’s hurricanes, she said.

The first lady ruled out that any migrant caravans had left her country in recent months.

When questioned about how many Hondurans have left their homeland to seek the American Dream, she said that no precise figures exist on that subject.

The Honduran government has always pushed for orderly and safe migration, with respect for human rights, she said.

Garcia went on to express her gratitude for the vaccination campaign for migrants being pushed by the Mexican Social Security Institute, which is seeking to help migrants in southern Mexico, where estimates are that up to 80,000 of them are stranded.

Javier Guerrero Rubiera, the coordinator of the Roadwalkers of District 7 brigade, said that the vaccination campaign has been under way since last week in parks and shelters and so far more than 600 people have been inoculated against the coronavirus.

Most of the migrants who have been vaccinated against Covid-19 to date are Haitians and Hondurans.

Amado Cuervo is one of the migrants who received the Cansino vaccine at the Honduran consulate, and he expressed his gratitude for the actions of his country’s authorities and the Mexican government.

He learned from others that the vaccinations would be administered at the consulate and went there voluntarily to get a shot.

Garcia on Wednesday was leading a two-day mission to Mexico’s southern border area to become familiar with protection mechanisms designed to guarantee the human rights of migrants from her country who are crossing Mexico hoping to get to the United States.

Her working agenda includes visits to shelters, immigration stations and meetings with top Mexican officials.

The region is experiencing an immigration wave that is unprecedented in recent years. Evidence of that is the fact that in July the US apprehended 212,672 undocumented migrants along its southern border, the highest monthly figure in 20 years.

EFE

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