TEGUCIGALPA, Jan. 15 (Xinhua) -- A migrant caravan of about 1,000 people, including children, set out from the north Honduran town of San Pedro Sula before daybreak on Wednesday, in a bid to reach the U.S. border.
Scores of migrants began to gather at the town's bus station on Tuesday to discuss potential routes north via first Guatemala and then Mexico, as well as the hurdles, such as increased border security.
The bulk of the caravan departed at 4 a.m. local time (1000 GMT), headed to the border town of Agua Caliente, in Ocotepeque department.
A smaller contingent left Tuesday night for the customs checkpoint at Corinto, in the department of Cortes, which borders on Guatemala.
This is the 13th caravan since October 2018, when a massive caravan of thousands made international headlines for its size. Authorities later said the caravan had been organized via social networks.
Caravans are mostly made up of migrants traveling on foot, who occasionally catch a ride with a passing car, truck or bus.
Videos posted online and picked up by TV broadcasters showed men and women saying goodbye to family and friends before embarking on the long journey north.
Most are driven by grinding poverty and a rise in violent crime to abandon their place of birth and seek work in the United States, where many before them have found gainful employment, if not a warm welcome.
An estimated 940,000 Hispanics of Honduran origin lived in the United States in 2017, who accounted for 2 percent of the U.S. Hispanic population that year, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of the U.S. Census Bureau's American Community Survey.
