Residents of the border city of Mexico are protesting against migrant caravans: 'Away! Away!'

"Away! Away!" evoke hundreds of residents of the Mexican city of Tijuana. They protest against the 3,000 migrants from Honduras, El Salvador and Nicaragua who have arrived in their city. The migrants hope for a better life in the US, but the border with the US is closed.

The caravan has come to a standstill in Tijuana, where tensions are now rising. The number of refugees at the border would still grow: according to the Mexican government to 10,000 migrants.

Yesterday, furious residents of Tijuana with Mexican flags pulled into the city. They chanted the Mexican national anthem and called on the migrants to leave their city as quickly as possible. According to the demonstrators, the migrants are dangerous and ungrateful. A few threw stones at the protests during the protests.

The 24-year-old Josue Caseres from Honduras, who recently arrived in the border town, complained to AP news agency that he had just fled because of the violence in his own country. "How can they think that we are coming here to be violent?"

Some residents of Tijuana are not happy with the arrival of the caravan, which consists for a large part of families. Mayor Juan Manuel Gastelum speaks of an "avalanche" on which the city is not prepared. Because the US only deals with 100 asylum applications per day, he calculated that the migrants will stay in their city for at least half a year.

Border city as the final station
"Tijuana is a final destination for many migrants," says correspondent Marc Bessems. "For a while, people from Central America have been leaving for the USA every day, hoping for a better life, some of whom have been around for a long time." Many migrants end up in slums on the outskirts of the city, which together have 1.3 million inhabitants.

Bessems understands that protest is therefore beginning to come. "The city can not handle the number of refugees: many people are already sleeping in the street, it is going to be a humanitarian crisis, a large part of this caravan will stay in Tijuana, to start a visa procedure or to save for a smuggler. . "