MEXICO CITY: Mexican soldiers, armed police and migration officials blocked hundreds of migrants after they crossed the border from Guatemala in a caravan into southern Mexico on Wednesday, and detained dozens of them, a witness from a migrant aid group and an official said.
The Mexican response in the border town of Metapa, which included dozens of soldiers, marked a toughening of the government’s efforts to curb the flow of mainly Central American migrants, said Salva Cruz, a coordinator with Fray Matias de Cordova.
“That many sailors and military police, yes, it’s new,” Cruz said, by WhatsApp, from Metapa, in the southern border state of Chiapas, where the vast majority of migrants cross into Mexico. Many are asylum seekers fleeing violence and poverty in Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador.
The operation in Chiapas coincided with a meeting of Mexican and US officials at the White House on Wednesday to thrash out a deal that would avoid blanket tariffs on Mexico threatened by US President Donald Trump last week.
Trump announced the tariffs in retaliation for what he called Mexico’s failure to stop Central American migrants reaching the US border.
US border officers apprehended more than 132,000 people crossing from Mexico in May, a third more than in April and the highest monthly level since 2006, reaching what US officials said on Wednesday were “crisis” levels.
A National Migration Institute (INM) official in Mexico City who was unauthorized to talk to the media said, on condition of anonymity, that the migrants were being asked to show their status in Mexico.
Migration officials detained 350 to 400 people, the official said, noting that federal police and agents from the National Guard were present. Mexico’s government recently created a militarized police force called the National Guard made up of soldiers and federal police.
It was not immediately possible to verify how many migrants crossed into Mexico.
On Wednesday afternoon in Mexico City, police detained Irineo Mujica, director of the US-Mexico migrant aid group Pueblo Sin Fronteras, and Cristobal Sanchez, a migrant rights activist, according to Alex Mensing, a coordinator with the group.
Pueblo Sin Fronteras has for several years guided annual caravans through Mexico, seeking to protect migrants and to advocate for their rights along a 2,000-mile trail ridden with criminals and corrupt officials who prey on lone travelers through kidnapping, extortion and other forms of assault.
Since April 2018, Trump has lashed out at the caravans of Central Americans wending their way to the United States, while blaming Mexico for failing to stop their movement to the US border.
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Mexico meets migrants at southern border with armed forces
Mexico meets migrants at southern border with armed forces
- Migration officials detained 350 to 400 people, the official said, noting that federal police and agents from the National Guard were present
Afghanistan’s historic Ariana Cinema torn down to make way for shopping center
KABUL: Through the decades, downtown Kabul’s Ariana Cinema had weathered revolution and war, emerging battered and bruised but still standing to entertain Afghans with Bollywood movies and American action flicks. Now, it is no more.
On Dec. 16, demolition crews began to tear down the historic cinema, which first opened its doors to moviegoers in the early 1960s. A week later, there was nothing left.
“It’s not just a building made of bricks and cement that is being destroyed, but the Afghan cinema lovers who resisted and continued their art despite the hardships and severe security problems,” Afghan film director and actor Amir Shah Talash told The Associated Press. “Unfortunately, all the signs of historical Afghanistan are being destroyed.”
Hearing about the Ariana Cinema’s destruction was “very painful and sad news for me,” said Talash, who has been active in Afghanistan’s film industry since 2004 but has been living in France since the Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan.
Taliban bans most forms of art and entertainment
Afghanistan’s Taliban government, which seized power in 2021 in the wake of the chaotic withdrawal of US and NATO troops, has imposed a harsh interpretation of Islamic law which has introduced a raft of restrictions, including bans on most forms of entertainment such as films and music.
Shortly after taking over, the new government ordered all cinemas to stop operating. On May 13 this year, it announced the dissolution of the Afghan Film Administration. The Ariana, built on municipal land by a busy traffic roundabout was shuttered and remained in limbo.
But Kabul authorities later decided the cinema, with its stylish marquee and plush red seats, had to make way for a new shopping complex.
“Cinemas themselves are a kind of commercial activity, and that area was a completely commercial area and had the potential for a good market there,” Kabul Municipality spokesman Niamatullah Barakzai said.
The municipality aims to develop the land it owns “to generate good income from its resources and bring positive changes in the city,” he added.
The Ariana Cinema opens in the liberalizing 1960s
The Ariana opened in 1963, its sleek architecture mirroring the modernizing spirit the then-ruling monarchy was trying to bring to the deeply traditional nation.
But Afghanistan was soon plunged into conflict. The Soviets invaded in 1979, and by the late 1980s war raged across the country, as Soviet-backed President Najibullah’s government fought an American-backed coalition of warlords and Islamic militants. He was toppled in 1992, but a bloody civil war ensued.
The Ariana suffered heavy damage and lay in ruins for years. In 1996, the Taliban took over Kabul, and whatever cinemas in the city had survived were shuttered.
A new — but temporary — lease of life
The Ariana was given a new lease of life after the Taliban’s 2001 ouster by the US-led invasion, with the French government helping to rebuild it in 2004.
Indian films were particularly popular, as were action movies, while the Ariana also began playing Afghan movies resulting from a revival of the domestic film industry.
For Talash, the film director and actor, it was his childhood visits to the Ariana with his brothers that sparked his interest in movies.
“It was from this cinema that I fell in love with film and turned to this art form,” he said. Eventually, one of his own films was screened in the Ariana, “which is one of the unforgettable memories for me.”
The cinema was a cultural gathering place for Kabul residents who would go there to “relieve their sorrows and problems and to calm their minds and hearts,” Talash said. “But now, a very important part of Kabul has been taken away. In this new era, we are regressing, which is very sad.”
But art, he said, doesn’t just reside in buildings. There is still hope.
“The future looks difficult, but it is not completely dark,” Talash said. “Buildings may collapse, but art lives on in the minds and hearts of people.”
In neighboring Pakistan, authorities imposed heavy taxes on Indian films to curb imports and then banned them outright after the 1965 war between India and Pakistan over the disputed Himalayan region of Kashmir. Bollywood fans from Pakistan would travel to Kabul instead to watch the popular movies.
Among them was Sohaib Romi, a Pakistani film enthusiast and art lover, who recalled watching the Indian film “Samjhauta,” or “Compromise,” at the Ariana in 1974 with his uncle.
For him, the loss is personal. “My memories are buried in the rubble of the Ariana Cinema,” he said.
On Dec. 16, demolition crews began to tear down the historic cinema, which first opened its doors to moviegoers in the early 1960s. A week later, there was nothing left.
“It’s not just a building made of bricks and cement that is being destroyed, but the Afghan cinema lovers who resisted and continued their art despite the hardships and severe security problems,” Afghan film director and actor Amir Shah Talash told The Associated Press. “Unfortunately, all the signs of historical Afghanistan are being destroyed.”
Hearing about the Ariana Cinema’s destruction was “very painful and sad news for me,” said Talash, who has been active in Afghanistan’s film industry since 2004 but has been living in France since the Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan.
Taliban bans most forms of art and entertainment
Afghanistan’s Taliban government, which seized power in 2021 in the wake of the chaotic withdrawal of US and NATO troops, has imposed a harsh interpretation of Islamic law which has introduced a raft of restrictions, including bans on most forms of entertainment such as films and music.
Shortly after taking over, the new government ordered all cinemas to stop operating. On May 13 this year, it announced the dissolution of the Afghan Film Administration. The Ariana, built on municipal land by a busy traffic roundabout was shuttered and remained in limbo.
But Kabul authorities later decided the cinema, with its stylish marquee and plush red seats, had to make way for a new shopping complex.
“Cinemas themselves are a kind of commercial activity, and that area was a completely commercial area and had the potential for a good market there,” Kabul Municipality spokesman Niamatullah Barakzai said.
The municipality aims to develop the land it owns “to generate good income from its resources and bring positive changes in the city,” he added.
The Ariana Cinema opens in the liberalizing 1960s
The Ariana opened in 1963, its sleek architecture mirroring the modernizing spirit the then-ruling monarchy was trying to bring to the deeply traditional nation.
But Afghanistan was soon plunged into conflict. The Soviets invaded in 1979, and by the late 1980s war raged across the country, as Soviet-backed President Najibullah’s government fought an American-backed coalition of warlords and Islamic militants. He was toppled in 1992, but a bloody civil war ensued.
The Ariana suffered heavy damage and lay in ruins for years. In 1996, the Taliban took over Kabul, and whatever cinemas in the city had survived were shuttered.
A new — but temporary — lease of life
The Ariana was given a new lease of life after the Taliban’s 2001 ouster by the US-led invasion, with the French government helping to rebuild it in 2004.
Indian films were particularly popular, as were action movies, while the Ariana also began playing Afghan movies resulting from a revival of the domestic film industry.
For Talash, the film director and actor, it was his childhood visits to the Ariana with his brothers that sparked his interest in movies.
“It was from this cinema that I fell in love with film and turned to this art form,” he said. Eventually, one of his own films was screened in the Ariana, “which is one of the unforgettable memories for me.”
The cinema was a cultural gathering place for Kabul residents who would go there to “relieve their sorrows and problems and to calm their minds and hearts,” Talash said. “But now, a very important part of Kabul has been taken away. In this new era, we are regressing, which is very sad.”
But art, he said, doesn’t just reside in buildings. There is still hope.
“The future looks difficult, but it is not completely dark,” Talash said. “Buildings may collapse, but art lives on in the minds and hearts of people.”
In neighboring Pakistan, authorities imposed heavy taxes on Indian films to curb imports and then banned them outright after the 1965 war between India and Pakistan over the disputed Himalayan region of Kashmir. Bollywood fans from Pakistan would travel to Kabul instead to watch the popular movies.
Among them was Sohaib Romi, a Pakistani film enthusiast and art lover, who recalled watching the Indian film “Samjhauta,” or “Compromise,” at the Ariana in 1974 with his uncle.
For him, the loss is personal. “My memories are buried in the rubble of the Ariana Cinema,” he said.
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