Honduran Migrant Caravan Disbands in Guatemala

A caravan of several thousand Honduran migrants that set out last week for the U.S. via Guatemala and Mexico had virtually disbanded by Monday after Guatemalan authorities turned many of them back and Mexico prepared to halt them at its border.

“Fortunately the caravan from Honduras isn’t continuing,” Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said.

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Mr. López Obrador said that the timing of the caravan, one month before presidential elections in the U.S., appeared strange, “although we can’t be sure that was why it was organized.”

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Most of the Hondurans, who set out Thursday after organizing via social media groups, were sent back before reaching the Mexican border. Guatemalan President Alejandro Giammattei said late Sunday that Guatemala had returned 3,384 Hondurans to their country.

Guatemala estimated that around 4,000 Hondurans had entered the country.

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Mexico was also preparing to block the passage of the caravan, with hundreds of migration officers and members of the army and National Guard posted at border crossing points and along the Suchiate river, which separates the two countries. {snip}

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Since 2018, at least seven caravans have left from Honduras and El Salvador, largely disintegrating before reaching the Mexican side of the U.S. border, leaving thousands of migrants stranded in shelters and hastily erected camps.