Central America
Threats from the migratory route in Guatemala: dengue, arrests and climate change
Thousands of migrants cross the border between Honduras and Guatemala daily on their way to the United States, facing the threat of tropical diseases such as dengue, the arrest of security forces and their subsequent deportation or the impact of a route hit by climate change.
On the border of El Corinto, between Guatemala and Honduras, the country’s Red Cross serves migrants who need medical assistance.
“Our job is to alleviate the suffering a little and dignify the lives of people who are in transit,” explains to EFE Mariana Bonilla, who works with the Red Cross at the Care Center for Migrants and Refugees (CAPMIR), located on the Guatemalan side of the border.
Every morning, Bonilla, 31, and the rest of her team, track the border road surrounded by African palm, banana plantations and the imposing Motagua River, the largest in Guatemala, in search of groups of migrants to guide them and indicate the points where they can receive support.
Within its center of attention, supported by the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC), migrants receive both medical and psychosocial assistance. “Many come with traumas from their passage through the Darién jungle” between Colombia and Panama, explains Bonilla.
Two kilometers after crossing the border, on the migratory route, is the village of Jimeritos, a community made up of farmers dedicated mainly to the cultivation of bananas that for six years has turned its small communal room into a refuge for migrants to rest.
“We are motivated to work with migrants. They leave their countries to seek an improvement for their family and here we give them what we can, because we do not know when we will have the same need,” explains Felicita Palencia, a resident of Jimeritos who was trained by the Red Cross to take care of migrants.
The community lounge has a bedroom with capacity for 12 people and, according to the leaders of the village, there are nights where they receive up to 30 migrants who seek refuge before continuing their journey to the Mexican border of Tecún Umán, located about 540 kilometers at the other end of the country.
Community community members pay attention despite the difficulties they are going through, such as strong dengue epidemics that affect the department of Izabal, where in 2023 more than 500 cases were registered and the region was put on red alert by the health authorities, a disease from which migrants are not freed either.
On May 2, in the community room, the Red Cross gathered the children of the Jimeritos public primary school to give them a talk about hygiene and sanitation measures to eliminate the mosquito that transmits dengue, as well as tools to identify the symptoms of this disease.
Carlos Linares, who has lived in this migrant host village for 42 years, assures EFE that the biggest concern for them is climate change, since the rainy season is approaching and in years such as 2001 and 2020 many houses were destroyed by storms.
“This part of the road is the most difficult to get to the United States, because there are a lot of police and they can return us to Honduras,” Mario Alvarado, a Honduran migrant who decided to look for the “American dream,” explains to EFE.
With temperatures of 40 degrees, Alvarado crossed the border, bordering the Motagua River and the African palm plantations, to end up arrested by the Guatemalan authorities.
Alvarado is the third time he has been on his way to the United States. He does it with his compatriot Danny Gámez, the same one with whom a few months ago they were deported from Texas, United States, after a journey that allowed them to work in the North American nation as painters.
Like Alvarado and Gámez, thousands of migrants seek to cross Guatemala every year and so far in 2024 alone, almost 8,000 have been arrested by the security forces for their subsequent deportation, according to figures from the Guatemalan Migration Institute (IGM).
“It doesn’t matter how many times we are deported. If there are no conditions to live in Honduras, we will always find a way to leave again,” Alvarado reiterates, before moving away between the path of a plantation with his journey companion.
Central America
El Salvador to host World Cup qualifiers vs. Guatemala and Panama at Estadio Cuscatlán
El Salvador’s national football team will host its final round World Cup qualifying matches against Guatemala and Panama at Estadio Cuscatlán, the honorary president of the National Sports Institute (INDES), Yamil Bukele, announced Thursday via a statement on his X account.
The official explained that this decision comes after the American rock band Guns N’ Roses, originally scheduled to perform at Estadio Cuscatlán on Saturday, October 4, will now hold their concert at Estadio Jorge “El Mágico” González. This change allows both of La Selecta’s qualifying matches to be played at the “Coloso de Monserrat.”
“After a series of efforts and in response to popular demand, we are pleased to announce that our senior national team’s CONCACAF World Cup qualifying matches next October (Oct. 10 vs. Panama and Oct. 14 vs. Guatemala) will take place at Estadio Cuscatlán,” the statement reads.
Bukele also thanked the event promoters and the band for agreeing to the stadium change. “We sincerely thank Guns N’ Roses and StarTicket for agreeing to move the concert originally scheduled for October 4 at Estadio Cuscatlán,” the statement adds.
Additionally, Bukele expressed gratitude to the FESFUT Regularization Commission for their efforts with CONCACAF to make this possible, and he urged fans to stay tuned to official channels to purchase tickets and support La Selecta in their World Cup qualifying campaign.
Central America
Honduran president Xiomara Castro suspends activities due to influenza
Honduran President Xiomara Castro announced on Thursday that she has “temporarily” suspended her public activities due to a severe influenza virus.
“A strong influenza virus requires me to rest, trusting that I will be fully recovered for the grand celebration of our National Independence Day” next Monday, Castro stated on the social media platform X.
The president had planned to participate in several inaugurations across the northern, central, and eastern regions of the country throughout the week. She added that “these events will be rescheduled for new dates.”
Central America
Nicaragua’s government expels bishops, priests, and nuns in religious persecution
At least 261 religious figures, including the president of the Nicaraguan Episcopal Conference, Carlos Enrique Herrera, have been expelled as part of the persecution by Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo’s regime against the Catholic Church, reported the NGO Colectivo Nicaragua Nunca Más in its report Faith Under Fire.
The report details that among those expelled are bishops Silvio Báez, Rolando Álvarez, Isidoro Mora, as well as the Apostolic Nuncio in Managua, Waldemar Stanislaw Sommertag, along with approximately 140 priests, over 90 nuns, ten seminarians, and three deacons from different dioceses in the country.
“Since the expulsion of Nuncio Sommertag in March 2022, relations between Nicaragua and the Vatican have significantly deteriorated,” the NGO noted.
The report also documents the closure of 5,609 non-profit organizations, of which 1,294 were religious, including churches, universities, schools, clinics, and humanitarian organizations. Most of these had their assets confiscated by the Sandinista government. Additionally, the telecommunications regulator TELCOR shut down 54 media outlets, including 22 religious radio stations and TV channels.
Repression has extended to other religious denominations, with forced disappearances and criminalization of evangelical pastors, control over temples, media censorship, fiscal pressure, property confiscation, and the cancellation of legal status for the Moravian Church. Pastor Rudy Palacios remains in detention as part of this pattern of persecution.
The NGO emphasized that churches, especially the Catholic Church, played a key role in the 2018 national dialogue, denouncing abuses and providing refuge to injured protesters, which fueled the government’s hostility.
In 2023, Pope Francis described Ortega’s regime as a “blatant dictatorship”, to which the Nicaraguan president responded by dissolving the Society of Jesus and labeling the Church as a “mafia” and “anti-democratic.”
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