Mexico City sends 47-vehicle aid brigade to support first migrant caravan

Over 300 government officials from Mexico City left their desks yesterday to offer assistance to the caravan of Central American migrants now traveling through Oaxaca.

Mayor José Ramón Amieva Gálvez and mayor-elect Claudia Sheinbaum saw them off as they hit the road in 47 government vehicles.

The specialists in health, law enforcement and legal services will offer humanitarian aid to the caravan of an estimated 7,500 people who began crossing the border from Guatemala on October 19.

“The country faces an unprecedented emergency with relation to Central American migration. We have never seen a phenomenon of this nature,” said the city’s human rights chief, who was also on hand at the farewell party.

” . . . we must protect the migrants.”

Amieva explained that the humanitarian aid will be directed chiefly to women, children and seniors, and will be enough to look after 1,500 people per day. City personnel will accompany the migrants until they reach Mexico City, an arrival expected in early November.

Mayor-elect Sheinbaum said the humanitarian aid would be provided “permanently,” as Mexico City should be known as an “hospitable city.”

Collection centers have been installed in the capital’s zócalo and in the sixteen borough offices, where denizens of the city can donate food and other supplies to the migrants.

“This is constitutional. We are together in this because it is the conviction of us all,” said Sheinbaum.

The caravan arrived today in Santiago Niltepec, an Isthmus region town located about 58 kilometers from the city of Juchitán.