The first caravan of Central American migrants since the pandemic

The first caravan of Central American migrants since the pandemic began, left Honduras seeking to get to the United States. Hundreds of people summoned on social media left the city of San Pedro Sula, in northern Honduras, headed for the border with Guatemala on September 30 in hopes of crossing into Mexico and then, the US. Just days later, Guatemala sent back over 3,000 people from Honduras making its way to the US. 

The Guatemalan government had just opened its land, air and sea borders on September 18, after six months shut due to the Covid-19 restrictions. To date, the coronavirus has left more than 3,000 deaths in Guatemala, which has more than 18 million people.

 In recent years, Central American people fleeing poverty and violence started to travel on foot in large groups to avoid the risk and cost of smugglers. The first caravan left San Pedro Sula, Honduras, in October 2018 with about a thousand people. Other caravans left days later from El Salvador. Since then there have been several until the coronavirus pandemic arrived. 

Mexico attempted to stop the caravans in 2019 deploying more patrol borders at the request of the President of the United States, Donald Trump, who described the caravans as if the US “is being stolen.”