The Catholic Church’s first point of assistance for migrants arriving in Mexico - Catholic News Agency

ACI Prensa Staff, Oct 12, 2022 / 13:00 pm

Tapachula, a municipality successful Mexico’s Chiapas state, sees the top influx of migrants from different countries heading northbound and is the Catholic Church’s archetypal constituent of assistance for migrants successful the country.

In a statement to ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language sister quality agency, Bishop Rodrigo Aguilar Martínez of San Cristóbal de Las Casas said that the Catholic Church helps migrants arriving successful the state done dioceses and parishes successful collaboration with institutions specified arsenic the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).

Located wrong 10 miles of the Guatemalan border, Tapachula is astir 270 miles southbound of San Cristóbal de Las Casas. 

The Church’s shelters for migrants, the prelate said, connection migrants “accommodations, food, intelligence and ineligible advice.”

“Those who privation to alteration their thoughts of going to the United States and alternatively person a occupation successful Mexico, are helped to instrumentality that route,” helium said, “taking vantage of the assistance offered by UNHCR.”

In addition, the Church offers them aesculapian assistance, Aguilar said, due to the fact that migrants often “arrive with the flu, overwhelmed by cold, heat, oregon rain.”

The migrants whitethorn besides person difficulties “due to problems with blisters oregon if they’ve banged their ft oregon knee, and person limitations to support connected walking. They’re helped truthful they tin get going again,” helium noted.

The travel of migrants, helium explained, is adaptable successful the region, and is affected by “climate and sociopolitical situations successful the country, with attitudes astatine the governmental, municipal, state, and national levels.”

“The concern successful the United States” plays a cardinal role, helium added.

Normally, migrants enactment successful the shelters provided by the Church for a time and a night, Aguilar said, due to the fact that “what they privation is to enactment arsenic small arsenic imaginable to proceed their journey.”

However, helium said, immoderate radical “do request to walk much days successful bid to retrieve for wellness reasons oregon supra each erstwhile they privation to spell done a ineligible process.”

This communicative was archetypal published by ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language quality partner. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.