"There are flights in which fellow citizens come with a fever, so they put them on planes. Here we evaluate them and we test them. This is how many of them have tested positive (with coronaviruses). How many? More than 75% of one of the flights was positive, "says Hugo Monroy, the Guatemalan Minister of Health in statements to the press this Tuesday, April 14. Is that why the number has increased so much? Asks a reporter. I can say yes, replies Minister Monroy. According to this official, between 50 and 75 percent of returnees have tested positive for coronavirus.
As of April 14, Guatemala officially reports 167 infections and five deaths. It is not clear if the people the Health Minister talks about are added to the government statistics, since the first flights with returnees, after the interruption for Easter, landed yesterday, Monday, April 13. One of them with 76 people and the other with 106, according to information from the AFP agency with data from the Guatemalan Migration Institute.
For security reasons and for not stigmatizing, said Minister Monroy, it was that he did not give details about the flight in which 75% of the people were positive.
On the first flight, with 76 Guatemalans, she arrived from Brownsville, Texas (southern United States), while on the second, 106 Guatemalans, including minors, arrived from El Paso, Texas, Alejandra Mena, spokeswoman for the Guatemalan Institute, told reporters. of Migration.
With these two, the flights of Guatemalans deported from the United States resumed, which were suspended for several days due to the Easter celebrations and due to restrictive measures by the local government to contain the spread of the coronavirus.
More than a week ago, Guatemala had asked Washington to increase health controls on deportees, after three expelled from that country tested positive for COVID-10. The spokesperson for the Guatemalan Migration Institute explained that Guatemalans will remain in quarantine in a temporary shelter installed at the La Aurora international airport in the capital of this country.
Meanwhile, Guatemalan Foreign Minister Pedro Brolo assures that the United States will continue to send flights of deportees, after indicating that the migration of Guatemalans to the north was reduced by 60% due to the coronavirus.
The head of United States diplomacy, Mike Pompeo, announced this Monday, April 13, that Washington intends to continue with the economic aid plan for El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras highlighting the efforts made by the three countries to reduce irregular migration to the North.
Last June, the United States said it would make the delivery of aid to these countries conditional on concrete actions to reduce the number of migrants arriving at its border.
Deportations of Guatemalans from the United States fell 13.4% in the first quarter of the year, compared to the same period in 2019.
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