A total of 14 irregular Cuban migrants were detained this Thursday in El Cacao, a town in the Namasigüe municipality, in the south of Honduras. They were driven by an alleged human trafficker, reported the National Police cited by the agency Eph.
The migrants were located in the department of Choluteca, a border point with Nicaragua. They were traveling in a van driven by the alleged trafficker, also called a “coyote” according to the National Police report.
The Cubans remain held in an office of the National Migration Institute, where they will wait for an immigration appointment, which, according to the source, means speeding up their legal exit from the country. A fine equivalent to 220 dollars would be applied to them, which immigrants pay for having entered the Central American country irregularly, for “blind spots” through human traffickers.
Meanwhile, the 25-year-old Honduran was brought to justice and will be charged with the crime of “illicit trafficking in persons,” the report states. The coyote was supposedly moving the Cubans from Choluteca to the border with Guatemala so that they could continue en route to the United States.
The Honduran authorities have intensified operational actions in border areas, to “combat and counter human trafficking and related crimes.”
Honduras: detained more than a hundred migrants from Cuba on their way to the US
In recent decades, Honduran territory has become a transit point for migrants, especially Cubans and Africans, who cross Central American countries to reach the United States.
More than 16,000 immigrants, mostly from Cuba, have been detained in Honduras so far in 2022 for illegally entering the country, according to figures from the National Migration Institute (INM) cited by the source.
Efe/OnCuba.
