ACACOYAGUA, Mexico: Thousands of Central American migrants crossing Mexico toward the United States in a caravan resumed their long trek Wednesday with a day’s walk expected to take about 12 hours.
The migrants, who have drawn near-daily Twitter tirades from US President Donald Trump, set out from the town of Huixtla, in southern Mexico, toward Mapastepec, some 60 kilometers (40 miles) away.
Carrying their few belongings on their backs — many with babies pressed to their chests or holding their children by the hand — they left at dawn after taking a one-day break to rest, bathe and nurse aching and injured feet.
“I miss my country. I’m not doing this because I want to. No one wants to leave their home to go to a place they don’t know. But sometimes necessity pushes us to do this, because of what’s happening in our countries,” said Delmer Martinez, a migrant from El Salvador.
Fleeing violent crime, political unrest and poverty at home, the migrants say they are determined to reach the United States — despite Trump’s vows to stop them, and his threats to cut aid to Central American countries, as well as to deploy the military and close the southern US border.
There are now about 7,000 migrants in the caravan, the United Nations estimates — the vast majority from Honduras.
In a show of solidarity, Mexicans watching the caravan pass shouted out, “Keep it up, brothers!” and gave them food and water.
“Mexico! Mexico!” the migrants shouted in reply, bathed in sweat under the hot sun of the southern state of Chiapas.
They have so far traveled about 100 kilometers from the Mexico-Guatemala border, where they crashed through a series of border gates Friday.
Halted at the final gate by hundreds of riot police, most of the caravan entered Mexico by swimming or taking rafts across the river that forms the border.
Mexican federal police have periodically accompanied the caravan in trucks or flown overhead in helicopters, but without attempting to stop it.
According to the Mexican government, 1,700 people who were traveling in the caravan have requested asylum in Mexico.
The migrants still have some 3,000 kilometers left to walk to reach the US.
Migrant caravan resumes trek to US-Mexico border
Migrant caravan resumes trek to US-Mexico border
UN chief calls on Israel to reverse NGOs ban in Gaza
- In November, authorities in Gaza said more than 70,000 people had been killed there since the war broke out
- Israel on Thursday suspended 37 foreign humanitarian organizations from accessing the Gaza Strip after they had refused to share lists of their Palestinian employees with government officials
UNITED NATIONS, United States: UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres called on Friday for Israel to end a ban on humanitarian agencies that provided aid in Gaza, saying he was “deeply concerned” at the development.
Guterres “calls for this measure to be reversed, stressing that international non-governmental organizations are indispensable to life-saving humanitarian work and that the suspension risks undermining the fragile progress made during the ceasefire,” his spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said in a statement.
“This recent action will further exacerbate the humanitarian crisis facing Palestinians,” he added.
Israel on Thursday suspended 37 foreign humanitarian organizations from accessing the Gaza Strip after they had refused to share lists of their Palestinian employees with government officials.
The ban includes Doctors Without Borders (MSF), which has 1,200 staff members in the Palestinian territories — the majority of whom are in Gaza.
NGOs included in the ban have been ordered to cease their operations by March 1.
Several NGOS have said the requirements contravene international humanitarian law or endanger their independence.
Israel says the new regulation aims to prevent bodies it accuses of supporting terrorism from operating in the Palestinian territories.
On Thursday, 18 Israel-based left-wing NGOs denounced the decision to ban their international peers, saying “the new registration framework violates core humanitarian principles of independence and neutrality.”
A fragile ceasefire has been in place since October, following a deadly war waged by Israel in response to Hamas’s unprecedented October 7, 2023, attack on Israel.
In November, authorities in Gaza said more than 70,000 people had been killed there since the war broke out.
Nearly 80 percent of buildings in Gaza have been destroyed or damaged by the war, according to UN data, leaving infrastructure decimated.
About 1.5 million of Gaza’s more than two million residents have lost their homes, said Amjad Al-Shawa, director of the Palestinian NGO Network in Gaza.
