2023-07-29 18:00:15
Two Honduran police officers guard a simple raised barrier at customs in Aguas Calientes, in the west of the country, on the border with Guatemala. On the Guatemalan side, a narrow street is already jammed with cars at 7 a.m. This customs has never been an important crossing point between the two countries. Families used it on Sundays to visit their relatives on the other side of the border. But, for more than a year, Aguas Calientes has become a very frequent passage for migrants, whether Colombian, Venezuelan or Haitian, on their way to the United States. “They seek to avoid the southern border of Mexico, much more controlled than that further north, in the Yucatan peninsulaexplains Aracely Martinez, anthropologist at the University of Guatemala del Valle and expert on migration issues. Migrants now cross the department of Peten in northern Guatemala. The trip is longer, more dangerous, but there is less risk of encountering the police, who remain a nightmare on this crossing. »
A family of Venezuelan migrants who have just crossed the border between Honduras and Guatemala, in Aguas Calientes (Honduras), waits for a vehicle to take them to Esquipulas (Guatemala), in order to continue their journey towards the United States, on 21 June 2023. LUIS VARGAS FOR “THE WORLD”
These migrants crossed Nicaragua and, before that, Costa Rica, which even provides buses so that they can go away more quickly, exhausted after crossing the Darien jungle, between Colombia and Panama, the worst ordeal on the way from South America. Honduras, which they have just left, is also seen as a haven of peace. The authorities issue them a five-day pass to cross the country. “The police don’t ask us for anything, don’t arrest us, we are received in hospitals, nothing to complain about”testifies Antonio Dolores, a young teacher who left Venezuela with two teacher friends and has just taken up the post of Aguas Calientes.
In front of them stretches Guatemala, which has become the crossing that poor migrants hate the most. At all the police roadblocks – between seven and eight on their way – they will have to give money if they want to move forward and not suffer abuse. The only statistics that exist, from the Human Rights Office, confirm this phenomenon. In 2022, three out of ten migrants said they had suffered violence while crossing Guatemala. This is more than double what is observed in other countries. In 62% of cases, it was extortion, practiced in 85.9% by the police.
“Real Mafia”
This racket has barely begun to set foot in Guatemala. As soon as they have crossed the barrier, the drivers approach the migrants and quickly negotiate places in the cars. “We don’t negotiate anything, they impose the price”, kindly corrects Sara Gomez, who has just donated her last 20 dollars (18 euros), which she had saved working as a nurse in Venezuela. The car travels only 5 kilometers to the large town of Esquipulas, without being stopped at police checkpoints. “The smugglers give a commission to the police, who give back part of it to their leadersdetails Alfredo Danilo Rivera, sociologist at the Central American Institute of Social Studies and Development, in Guatemala City.. Then come the officials of the National Institute of Migration, who also ask for money on pain of deportation to Honduras. The system is not based on any law and operates like a real mafia. »
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