3,000 migrants begin walk north from southern Mexico

A migrant holds a cross with text that reads in Spanish "State crime. Dead." as he and others start walking north from Tapachula, Chiapas state, Mexico, Sunday, April 23, 2023. Migrants in southern Mexico, angry about 40 of their own who died in a fire at a detention facility last month, began walking toward Mexico City. (AP Photo/Edgar Hernandez Clemente)

By EDGAR H. CLEMENTE / Associated Press April 24, 2023 4 min read

TAPACHULA, Mexico (AP) — Around 3,000 migrants set out Sunday on what they call a mass protest procession through southern Mexico to demand the end of detention centers like the one that caught fire last month, killing 40 migrants.

The migrants set out early Sunday from the city of Tapachula, near the Guatemalan border. They say their aim is to reach Mexico City to demand changes in the way migrants are treated.

“It could well have been any of us,” Salvadoran migrant Miriam Argueta said of those killed in the fire. “In fact, a lot of our countrymen died. The only thing we are asking for is justice, and to be treated like anyone else.”

But in the past many participants in such processions have continued on to the U.S. border, which is almost always their goal. The migrants are mainly from Central America, Cuba, Venezuela, Ecuador and Colombia.