Guatemala City – Guatemala has returned some 3,500 Honduran migrants from a caravan heading to the United States, for fear of spreading COVID-19, President Alejandro Giammattei said Sunday.
In a televised message, Giammattei said that Guatemalan security forces managed to “contain” the caravan, which the president said one thing in the transmission of the virus.
“We are living through a pandemic in Guatemala that has charged us with months of effort,” the representative said, adding that it was an “obligation” to reduce the threat of extra contagion.
According to the Guatemalan Institute of Migration (IGM), the caravan entered eastern Guatemala on Thursday, pushing a military cordon on the Corinthian border before splitting into teams to succeed in Mexico, which closed its borders.
In recent years, thousands of Central American migrants traveling in giant teams have entered Mexico in an effort to succeed on the U. S. border.
Migrants have a hot topic for conservative politicians in the United States, adding President Donald Trump’s base.
Trump, who has a term of office so far in the November 3 election, has threatened Mexico with the highest price lists if it does nothing else to prevent an increase in undocumented immigrants.
On Friday and Saturday, a lot of Guatemalan army police and forces set up barricades that forced migrants, adding young people and others in wheelchairs, to turn around.
Fifteen other people from the caravan have sought refuge in Guatemala, according to the IGM.
“We respect the right to migration as long as the needs and protocols that have been established are regulated and respected, and as was the case with this organization of migrants who have violently harmed our country,” Giammattei said.
COVID-19 has inflamed another 93,963 people and killed 3,293 since March in Guatemala, a country of about 17 million people.
The country began reopening in July after 4 months of restrictions to prevent the pandemic.