The huge media interest in Central American immigrants who amassed in their thousands in caravans at the US border in November last year gave the impression that it was a one-off event. But new caravans keep coming.
That’s because there is a political force propelling Hondurans in particular, which gets altogether less coverage: the regime of the US-backed president Juan Orlando Hernández. Protesters there say they lack access to food, medicines, healthcare and education, and that dissent is brutally repressed. Doctors, nurses, teachers and students who recently mobilized against a proposed privatization bill were met with teargas, baton charges and mass detentions. State resources are increasingly diverted to militarization.
