Hundreds of members of a caravan of migrants who had crossed Guatemala have tried to breach the Mexican border, as Mexico vowed to tackle the convoy that US President Donald Trump says must be stopped before it reaches the United States.
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Central American migrants from the caravan that began in Honduras last weekend pushed through Guatemalan border posts and streamed onto a bridge connecting the two countries, only to be halted by dozens of Mexican police in riot gear.
Some migrants violently shook fences at the border. A handful jumped into the Suchiate river below to swim for rafts. Others turned back toward Guatemala.
Carrying backpacks and small children, many bedraggled migrants simply sat down on the bridge. Some said that they had been teargassed. As the afternoon drew on, a tropical storm, Vicente, formed nearby off the Pacific coast.
Jose Brian Guerrero, a 24-year-old Honduran travelling with neighbours and his extended family, said he had joined the caravan to escape violent street gangs, and to find work.
"There's nothing for us in our country," said Guerrero, who used to sell beans in Honduras.
On Friday evening, Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez said he had spoken to his Guatemalan counterpart Jimmy Morales for clearance to send civil protection personnel to help the Hondurans and to find transport for those wanting to return.
"We'll continue this operation for as long as is necessary," Hernandez said in a post on Twitter.
A similar caravan of Central Americans that formed in southern Mexico in late March also drew the ire of Trump, who on Thursday threatened to use the military and close the southern border if Mexico did not halt the new march.
Such a move would cause chaos on the crossing, one of the world's busiest, and badly disrupt trade.
Speaking in Scottsdale, Arizona on Friday, Trump said he "appreciated very much" Mexico's efforts to stop the caravan.
"If that doesn't work out, we're calling up the military - not the (National) Guard - we're calling up the military," he told reporters. "They're not coming into this country."
Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala are among the poorest and most violent countries in the Americas. Their emigrants make up the bulk of people now caught trying to enter the US illegally every year.
Several migrants at the Guatemala-Mexico border spoke of entire neighbourhoods leaving their homes to join the trek after news circulated on social media of a call for a new "caravan" to Mexico six months after the previous one.
Australian Associated Press