In Mexico, several thousand people who left the south of the country on Christmas Eve want to reach the border with the United States on foot. Entire families, coming from Central America, began an “Exodus from Poverty”, placards in hand. It is the longest migrant caravan of the year.
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More than 7,000 men, women and children, alone or with their families, took the road from Tapachula, a town in southern Mexico, on the Guatemalan border. They come from Honduras, Colombia, Venezuela, Cuba, and even Haiti and they are fleeing the poverty in which they live. But in the south of Mexico: the asylum application registration offices are completely saturated and the jobs to be filled are rare.
Walking for long hours, under a blazing sun, luggage and strollers in hand, they spent the Christmas holidays counting on the meager resources that the Catholic Church or supportive local residents could provide them along the way. The objective, for them: to make the authorities aware of their plight, even if it means risking crossing the border with the United States.
Secretary of State Anthony Blinken is expected in Mexico this Wednesday to meet President Obrador, in order to “ discuss border security » – this is what the State Department announces – and the possibility of “ reopen entry points on this border », closed recently due to the influx of people.
For its part, Mexico is the third country in the world to register the highest number of asylum requests this year, according to the Office of the High Commissioner for Refugees. Right after Germany and the United States.