• Live
    • Audio Only
  • google plus
  • facebook
  • twitter
News > Latin America

Caravan of Mothers of Missing Migrants Arrives in Mexico City

  • Caravan of Central American Mothers of Missing Migrants

    Caravan of Central American Mothers of Missing Migrants | Photo: Movimiento Migrante Mesoamericano

Published 24 November 2016
Opinion

The Caravan of Central American Mothers of Missing Migrants searches for missing relatives and seeks to raise awareness about the plight of thousands.

After traveling through Nicaragua, El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala and parts of southern Mexico, the 12th Caravan of Mothers of Missing Migrants arrived in Mexico City Thursday to seek missing family members and raise awareness about the thousands of Central American migrants who have gone missing in their journey towards Mexico and the U.S.

RELATED:
Guatemalan Sisters Reunite After 32 Years and Long Search

In Mexico City, the group plans to lobby government officials and meet with other migrant solidarity and community groups, including the presentation of a new documentary A Mi No Va A Pasar (It's Not Going To Happen To Me).

Since beginning their journey in Guatemala on Nov. 10, the group of 50 mothers and their supporters have traveled thousands of miles “looking for life on the roads of death,” in the hopes of finding missing relatives and connecting with other families who have lost loved ones to the perilous journey.

According to the International Crisis Group, upward of 400,000 migrants from Central America, displaced by the devastation of neoliberal economic policies and the U.S.-sponsored War on Drugs, make the journey north every year, with tens of thousands of those reported missing. Many of the missing languish in Mexican jails, detained as part of that country's own crackdown on undocumented migrants that has come about amid pressure from the U.S. to stem the flow of workers trying to cross the Mexican-U.S. border.

With pictures of missing family members hanging from their necks, the members of the caravan have visited shelters, jails, and combed streets of the towns and villages where their children passed while heading north. During the last 12 years, the caravan has located 265 previously missing family members of the 800 cases they have registered.

This year’s caravan is dedicated to the memory of the Honduran environmentalist Berta Cáceres, who was murdered in March of this year. The Caravan will continue north toward the U.S.-Mexico border and will end on Dec. 3.

Comment
0
Comments
Post with no comments.