Global Courant
Danli
With about sixty dollars (1,482 lempiras), thousands of Venezuelans are managing to cross Honduras to continue their journey through Guatemala en route to reach the goal of reaching the Mexican border with USA.
The price seems affordable for many of the migrants, who a few months ago had flooded the main cities of the country, such as Tegucigalpa and San Pedro Sula, where they stopped to continue their journeys to the border with Guatemala, on a post crossing that took them up to a week and cost almost three hundred dollars, and even the same Police made illegal charges.
Transport
In recent months, several private transport companies have set up large buses to transport migrants heading to Guatemala from Nicaragua.
There are dozens of buses that added to make the journey from the city of Danlí, 17 kilometers from the border with Nicaragua, to Agua Caliente, on the border with Guatemala, charging 50 dollars each.
Data
> 29,000 Venezuelans passed through Honduras in 2022, according to irregular migration records held by the authorities. > 50,000 Venezuelans leave their country every day, most of them irregularly, with the aim of reaching the USA, fleeing the deep socioeconomic crisis. > 1,000 Dollars are estimated by Venezuelan migrants that they need for the journey from their country to reach Mexico, if they do not have major inconveniences.
On March 23, when THE PREMIUM PRESS visited Danlí, there were 1,000 people in the care center for irregular migrants in that city, the majority having entered through the borders of Trojes and Las Manos.
They were just a part of the 108,730 migrants who have arrived in Honduras in 2023, according to statistics from the Migration’s national institute (INM).
Of that number, updated until the end of May, at least 38,128 were Venezuelans, who continue to be the largest number of undocumented immigrants seeking the American dream.
At 8:00 am that day, many of them got off the public transport buses desperate to get a spot in line outside the migration center, located on the Pan-American highway in Danlí, to process the safe-conduct that allowed them to circulate without the fear of being arrested or fined by the agents.
At that site, Sara, a 25-year-old Venezuelan woman with green eyes and fair skin, waits standing with her two daughters, ages 6 and 3, along with her sister, carrying three small backpacks. While she tried to get one of them, dehydrated from vomiting and the exhausting route, to drink water, she waited her turn to continue.
Girls fuel another statistic; Between January and February, 9,683 minors crossed Colombia to Panama through the dangerous jungle of El Darién, according to a report by the Panama Ombudsman’s Office and United Nations.
The trip, which according to their calculations was going to take a month, would end up costing them about $1,000 from the time they left Venezuela until they reached Mexico. The figure does not seem like much for a journey through eight countries, but it is high for those people who are fleeing poverty and without support, without knowing if they will be able to reach their destination.
Added to the bewilderment that the U.S. government announced in October 2022 that people from Venezuela, Haiti, Nicaragua and Cuba would be returned if they crossed the border without permission, at the same time that it approved the Humanitarian Parole, through which a person can request legal entry through a family member living in USA.
Although the flow of migrants decreased for a few months due to the measure, it has not prevented Venezuelans from continuing to reach Honduras to follow your goal.
Few who are not in statistics have been left stranded waiting to collect money with businesses selling food and sweets that they make on the streets.
Nightmare
If you ask Sara about the Darien Gap, her face floods with horror. Her journey began in Venezuela, like many of the 50,000 migrants who leave every month, who flee from the terrifying reality that exists in the country.
In 2022, according to figures from the Organization of American States (OEA), a million Venezuelans emigrated from their land. They travel through five cities to Necoclí, the last step on the Colombian-Panama border, before facing the crossing through one of the most dangerous trails in the world: the Darién Gap, a jungle that connects South America with Central America.
To know
> On January 13, the Honduran authorities opened a migrant center in Danlí, where they are given lodging and food for a day.
The most dangerous jungle in the world requires a week of walking among snakes, crossing rivers with their children on their backs, avoiding animals and criminals who steal in order not to steal, charging $150 per person, with little food and less water.
Panama travels like a breath, since there is a controlled flow and the Government arranged migratory stationswhere no one would dare to stay more than a day, and buses that for 60 dollars take you from one end of the country to the other so that you get off at the entrance gate to Costa Rica.
There, according to the migrants, the passage is calm, in the community of Paso de Canoas they do not ask for documents and after walking a stretch they take a bus that takes them to the border with Nicaragua.
In Nicaragua, they say, there are not many obstacles, although in August 2022 they approved a $150 fine, but a group of migrants Consulted in Danlí said they did not pay anything, other than the fare of between 30 and 50 dollars on a public transport bus, and others who traveled by taxi from the capital to the Trojes border paid 100 dollars each.
Once in Panama, what followed was fast: a week between that country, Costa Rica and Nicaragua, where no one encounters many obstacles. “We passed Nicaragua without registering,” said Francisco López, a Venezuelan upon arriving in Honduras.
“They asked one of them for a payment of 90 dollars, but since we didn’t have any, we crossed the border alone and nobody told us anything because there were so many of us,” he said.
The road is not cheap. “We always had to pay, they make us mandatory charges and we know they are not in the law, but our need is to reach USA”, recounted another of the migrants, who only wanted to identify herself as Magdalena.
In Nicaragua and Honduras, the migrants they have been victims of the same police authorities, who set up operations on highway axes where they know the buses are passing and after making searches they demand money, these scenes have been recorded by the same migrants and security agencies Human rights. The same population has repudiated the actions.
In Guatemala, where they continue after passing Hondurasthere are problems of another type: groups dedicated to human trafficking and armed men controlling the blind spots, the steps that most migrants cross on foot to avoid immigration, charging from 9 to 15 dollars.
In that country they have also denounced irregular charges from the Police, but the passage is free.
Since the US President Joe Biden took the measure of not allowing Venezuelan citizens to enter, in Honduras the presence on the streets increased and others were housed in improvised church shelters, but they also did not decide to stay on the road or seek political asylum.
What is real is that people like Sara, with her two daughters and her sister, will not stop until they reach USAwith or without money, with or without safe conductwith or without immigration permits.
