Now Mexicans are being mean to the caravan: 1,200 drop out over sickness, fear and police harassment as Mattis prepares to order 800 troops to fortify the border
Caravan numbers have dwindled on Thursday to an estimated 5,000 as sickness and exhaustion take toll
Some 500 have decided to return to Honduras on buses and 1,700 dropped out to seek asylum in Mexico
Mexican police have been ordering drivers in the country not to give migrants rides
Authorities in Mexico said that many of those who decided to leave the group were ‘sick or exhausted’
Meanwhile Trump has ordered Mattis to send 800 troops be deployed to fortify the southern US border
By KEITH GRIFFITH and JENNIFER SMITH
DAILYMAIL.COM
25 October 2018
Sickness, fear and police harassment have slowly whittled the size of the migrant caravan, but thousands remained on the northward march even as Defense Secretary Jim Mattis was expected to sign an order sending 800 or more troops to the southern border.
The caravan, still numbering some 4,000 to 5,000, set off from from Mapastepec, Mexico at dawn on Thursday with more than 1,000 miles still to go and the rigors of the trek toward the U.S. taking their toll.
In the 95 miles since the caravan burst through the border with Guatemala over the weekend, an estimated 500 people have voluntarily accepted bus trips back to their home countries, and 1,700 have dropped out to apply for asylum in Mexico, officials in that country say.
‘We didn’t know what lay ahead,’ lamented Pedro Arturo Torres, homesick for Honduras. ‘We want to return to our country, where you can get by — even if just with beans, but you can survive, there with our families, at peace.’
Carlos Roberto Hernandez, of Yoro province in Honduras, dropped out after developing a rumbling cough during the scorching daytime heat and evening rains.
‘We got hit by rain, and ever since then I’ve had a cold,’ Hernandez said. Asked Wednesday if he would make another attempt to reach the U.S., he said emphatically: ‘No. I’m going to make my life in Honduras.’
On Thursday morning, the column stretched for more than a mile as the migrants left the Mapastepec town square where many spent the night.
The municipality of some 45,000 people, along with churches and volunteers, offered some medicine and donated water, clothing baby formula and baby bottles.
As they reached the highway, families with young children packed sidewalks asking for donations and rides to the next stop, Pijijiapan, about 25 miles further ahead.
Melkin Claros, 34, was traveling with his seven-year old son and a teenage nephew and remained steadfast in his goal.
‘Everyone’s objective is to arrive (in the United States),’ he said, adding that he planned to request asylum because gangs made it impossible to live in Honduras. ‘It’s true you risk your life a lot here, but we risk more in our country.’
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