'If our countries were safe, we wouldn't leave': the harsh reality of Mexico's migrant caravan
David Agren in Matias Romero, Mexico
@el_reportero
Fri 6 Apr 2018 01.00 EDT
As Donald Trump decries an ‘invasion’ and sends troops to the border, David Agren speaks to Central Americans fleeing poverty and violence
David Agren in Matias Romero, Mexico
@el_reportero
Fri 6 Apr 2018 01.00 EDT Last modified on Fri 6 Apr 2018 01.01 EDT
Swaying on a swing in a park teeming with Central American migrants in southern Mexico, Henry Juárez hardly looks like an invader ready to rush the US border – and certainly not an enemy the national guard forces being sent to the southern frontier by Donald Trump would have trouble stopping.
A slight 16-year-old with copper streaks in his hair wearing a singlet, sandals and baggy pants, he hit the perilous road through Mexico last month after seven gangbangers burst into his home in El Salvador, put a pistol in his face and threatened to kill him and his family if he didn’t make an extortion payment of $100 (£71).
“I was going to stay in my own country. I had a good job,” said Juárez, who had worked for a company installing utility poles. “But they were asking me for money that I didn’t have.”
Juárez was among the more than 1,000 Central Americans trying to trying to reach the United States in the annual “Stations of the Cross Caravan”. The caravan travels the length of Mexico and often raises awareness of the plight of migrants, who flee poverty and violence in some of the most murderous countries in the world and are robbed, kidnapped and raped on their perilous paths through the country.
More:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/apr/05/view-inside-mexico-migrant-caravan-trump-border-wall