A massive caravan of migrants, which travelled the roads of the southern Mexican state of Chiapas on Monday with the aim of reaching the United States, reached an agreement with Mexican immigration authorities on Thursday, which will allow the undocumented migrants to travel freely in the Latin American country, official sources reported.
In a statement, Mexico’s National Migration Institute (INM) explained that, after establishing a dialogue with the members of the caravan in the town of Villa Comaltitlán (Chiapas), it was agreed to set up a processing table to grant the Multiple Migration Form (FMM) for humanitarian reasons.
The Mexican authorities also carried out a census in the Villa Comaltitlán plaza, where more than 1,180 people were counted, including 126 accompanied minors and five unaccompanied minors, who will be provided with food and water.
“The majority of the people registered are from Central American countries and Venezuela,” the source said.
The regularisation agreement aims to prevent travellers from putting their health and lives at risk by illegally transiting through Mexican territory.
In addition, the INM said that it will not provide buses for the mobility of migrants, so they will be able to travel by their own means.
With the agreement between the Mexican government and the migrants, the caravan that left last weekend from the city of Tapachula, Chiapas, with more than 3,000 people, which sought to travel to Mexico City, has been dissolved.
The situation in southern Mexico and the migrant caravans expose the unprecedented migration crisis that the Latin American region has been experiencing in recent years, mainly affecting Mexican border cities.