By Marlyn Montilla
Mar 27, 2024, 16:20 PM EDT
Thousands of participants of the “Viacrucis migrants” asked the Government of Mexico for free movement to leave Chiapas, on the southern border, and that they not be arrested by the officers of the National Migration Institute (INM), who patrol during their walk.
The migrants, who left on Monday with 3,000 people, arrived in the municipality of Huixtla under a temperature above 90° F, so some families received treatments and medications from Civil Protection personnel of the municipality of Tuzatán.
A Venezuelan indicated that his goal is to leave Chiapas, continue to Mexico City to find employment and obtain money to continue the trip to the United States.
“The walk is the hardest, women suffer more from their legs, they are taking care of us, they are giving us medicine because I have a dry cough for several days with a tight chest,” she shared.
The large group of people came out on the occasion of Holy Week, so they keep a wooden cross, which has become a symbol to continue walking along federal highway 200 from Tapanatepec-Oaxaca.
Identified as Rafael López, another Venezuelan, stated that they are not asking to “give them everything,” but only to give them free transit, water and, if possible, a plate of food because they do not have many economic resources.
“We are doing well, thank God, we are doing fine, we are keeping pace, supporting each other, they have given us support with water services and we are doing well. (We ask) that they facilitate our passage, the journey, we are not asking that they give us everything, but rather that they facilitate our passage,” he expressed.
About 500 people arrived since Monday at the Guadalupe Dome in Huixtla, a shelter for irregular migrants, so on Tuesday a large part of more migrants hope to reach that municipality, where they strengthened themselves and left this Wednesday at 5:00 p.m. tomorrow bound for Escuintla.
Asked about the advance of the “migrant Viacrusis”, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, promised in his morning press conference “protection” and respecting their rights.
The group of migrants walks while tension grows over the presidential elections in both the United States and Mexico, where irregular migration increased by 77% in 2023 to exceed 782,000 people.
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