100s left stranded after Mexico troops block way

Migrants run after crossing the Suichate river, the natural border between Guatemala and Mexico on Tuesday. Pic/AFP

Ciudad Hidalgo: Hundreds of Central American migrants were stranded in a sort of no man's land on the river border between Guatemala and Mexico after running up against lines of Mexican National Guard troops deployed to keep them from moving en masse into the country and on north toward the US.

Naked children played amid the sand and trash on Monday evening as clothing and shoes hung from the trees to dry along with the Suchiate River, normally a porous waterway plied all day by rafts ferrying people and goods across.

Men grilled a fish over a small fire below the border bridge, and migrants bedded down under blankets on the banks or dry sections of the riverbed without knowing what might come next.

The path forward was blocked by the Mexican troops with riot shields, and about 100 National Guard agents continued to form a barrier with anti-riot gear into the night. But a return home to impoverished and gang-plagued Honduras, where most of the migrants are from, was unthinkable.

"We are in no man's land," said Alan Mejía, whose 2-year-old son was cradled in his arms clad only in a diaper as his wife, Ingrid Vanesa Portillo, and their other son, 12, gazed at the riverbanks. Mejía joined in five previous migrant caravans but never made it farther than the Mexican border city of Tijuana.

"They are planning how to clear us out, and here we are without water or food," said a desperate Portillo. Unlike was often the case with previous caravans, there was no sign of humanitarian aid arriving for those stuck at the river.

Throngs waded across the Suchiate into southern Mexico on Monday hoping to test US President Donald Trump's strategy to keep Central American migrants away from the US border.
Some scuffled with National Guard troops on the riverbank while others slipped through the lines and trudged off on a rural highway, with most taken into custody later in the day. Still, others were taken into custody on the spot or chased into the brush.

4,000
Total no. of migrants who entered Guatemala last week

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