Violence in Central America’s Northern Triangle Is Now a Humanitarian Crisis Wendy Anders - The Costa Rica Star
go to original May 15, 2017

Fleeing Central America to Survive: Marco, a young gay man from Honduras, fled to Mexico after his life was threatened by gang members. He is one of the estimated 500,000 people who flee Central America each year, and enter Mexico seeking safety and a chance for a better life. The violence many of these refugees and migrants have experienced is not unlike that of individuals living through war. (Doctors Without Borders)

A report presented last week by the international medical humanitarian organization Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) said their teams in Mexico treating migrants show a “pattern of violent displacement, persecution, sexual violence, and forced repatriation akin to the conditions found in the deadliest armed conflicts in the world today,” in people fleeing El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala.

The humanitarian group is calling for “adequate health care, support, and protection for these victims of violence as they travel through Mexico,” and presented data from their work and from a recent survey. They said, “There is inadequate response from governments … whose immigration and asylum policies disregard the humanitarian needs of migrants and refugees.”

Recent data from the United Nations High Commission on Refugees (UNHCR) speaks of an estimated 500,000 people crossing into Mexico every year, the majority originating from the region now referred to as the Northern Triangle of Central America (NTCA) – one of the most violent regions in the world today.

“The violence suffered by people in the NTCA is comparable to the experience in war zones where MSF has been present for decades. Murder, kidnappings, threats, recruitment by non-state armed actors, extortion, sexual violence, and forced disappearance are brutal realities in many of the conflict areas where MSF provides support. The evidence gathered by MSF points to the need to understand that .. migration from the NTCA is … a broader humanitarian crisis,” details the MSF report.

Having provided medical and mental health care for the past five years to northern triangle migrants and refugees, doctors have seen how,

“Trauma, fear, and horrific violence are dominant facets of daily life. Yet it is a reality that does not end with their forced flight to Mexico. Along the migration route from the NTCA, migrants and refugees are preyed upon by criminal organizations, sometimes with the tacit approval or complicity of national authorities, and subjected to violence and other abuses - abduction, theft, extortion, torture, and rape - that can leave them injured and traumatized.”

“Nearly 98 percent of NTCA citizens were captured by immigration authorities in 2015, with devastating consequences on their physical and mental health,” said MSF in their recent report which is based on surveys and medical data from the past two years.

Read the rest at The Costa Rica Star

We invite you to add your charity or supporting organizations' news stories and coming events to PVAngels so we can share them with the world. Do it now!