Guatemala

VADO HONDO (Guatemala), Jan 18 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Guatemalan security forces used sticks and tear gas to beat back a large migrant caravan bound for the United States, just days before the advent of a new US administration, which urged travelers to abandon the journey.

Between 7,000 and 8,000 migrants, including families with young children, have entered Guatemala since Friday, authorities say, fleeing poverty and violence in a region hammered by the coronavirus pandemic and back-to-back hurricanes in November.

GUATEMALA CITY (AP) — Guatemalan soldiers blocked part of a caravan of as many as 9,000 Honduran migrants Saturday at a point not far from where they entered the country seeking to reach the U.S. border.

The soldiers, many wearing helmets and wielding shields and sticks, formed ranks across a highway in Chiquimula, near the Honduras border, to block the procession of migrants.

Guatemala’s immigration agency distributed a video showing a couple of hundred men scuffling with soldiers, pushing and running through their lines, even as troops held hundreds more back.

GUATEMALA CITY (AP) — Hundreds of protesters broke into Guatemala’s Congress and burned part of the building Saturday amid growing demonstrations against President Alejandro Giammattei and the legislature for approving a controversial budget that cut educational and health spending.

GUATEMALA CITY, Nov. 8 (Xinhua) -- At least two people were killed on Sunday when a small plane airlifting food to victims of tropical storm Eta crashed, the Municipal Firefighters of Guatemala City said.

The plane crashed around noon, minutes after taking off from the capital's La Aurora International Airport on its way to the northern department of Alta Verapaz.

One body was discovered at the site of the accident and another victim died after being taken to a local hospital. One of the deceased was identified as the pilot.

PURULHA, Guatemala (AP) — Searchers in Guatemala dug through mud and debris looking for an estimated 100 people believed buried by a massive, rain-fueled landslide, as Tropical Storm Eta continued to gain strength Saturday and churned toward Cuba and southern Florida.

PURULHA, Guatemala (AP) — Guatemalan search brigades pulled the first bodies Friday from a massive rain-fueled landslide where at least 100 people are believed to be entombed, as the remains of Hurricane Eta moved across Caribbean waters, strengthening en route to Cuba.

Governments worked to tally the displaced and dead, and recover bodies from landslides and flooding caused by Eta, now a tropical depression, that claimed dozens of lives from Mexico to Panama.

GUATEMALA CITY (AP) — Guatemalan President Alejandro Giammattei said Friday he has tested positive for the new coronavirus, but he told a local radio station he feels well.

However, in a televised address to the nation, Giammattei looked a bit out of breath.

“My symptoms are very mild. Up to now, I have body aches, it hurt more yesterday than today, like a bad cold,” the president said. “I don’t have a fever, I have a bit of a cough.”

“I am busy working from home,” he said.

Giammattei, 64, has multiple sclerosis and uses canes to walk.

GUATEMALA CITY (AP) — The United States resumed deportation flights to Guatemala Tuesday, nearly a month after the Central American country refused to accept them.

A flight from Alexandria, Louisiana landed in the Guatemalan capital Tuesday afternoon. The plane carried 40 adults and 10 children.

At least 186 Guatemalan deportees had tested positive for COVID-19 after arriving in the country even after U.S. assurances that they were healthy.

SAN SALVADOR, June 1 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Tropical Storm Amanda triggered flash floods, landslides and power outages as it barrelled through El Salvador and Guatemala Sunday, killing 14 people, authorities said, warning of further heavy rain to come.

El Salvador President Nayib Bukele declared a 15-day state of emergency to cope with the effects of the storm, which he estimated to have caused $200 million in damage, but which weakened later in the day as it moved into Guatemala.

GUATEMALA CITY, May 22 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Guatemala blasted US President Donald Trump over US deportations of migrants infected with coronavirus.

President Alejandro Giammattei said the deportations had saturated quarantine centers in Guatemala and heaped pressure on the Central American country’s weak health system.

“Guatemala is an ally to the United States, the United States is not an ally to Guatemala,” he told the Atlantic Council, a Washington-based international affairs think tank.