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Migrant Lives

Displaced Guatemalans Languish On Mexican Border

Migrants along the Guatemala-Mexico border
Migrants along the Guatemala-Mexico border
Giacomo Tognini

LAGUNA LARGA — Four months ago, hundreds of villagers were expelled from their land in the jungles of northern Guatemala. The government claimed they were encroaching on a protected national park, sending over 700 men, women, and children fleeing to the nearby Mexican border. According to the Guatemalan daily Prensa Libre, the refugees continue to languish in squalid conditions without any government help despite growing criticism from human rights organizations.

Over 450 refugees remain trapped in the border area between Guatemala and Mexico, living in unsanitary conditions. Three women suffered miscarriages and three children were born without documents in a border zone, leaving them effectively stateless. Several women are pregnant but there is little medical care available, and there are no schools for the children.

The dispute arose five years ago when the community occupied land in Laguna Larga, near the town of San Andrés. The government insisted the land was protected, eventually evicting the villagers and blocking their return. While most of the refugees were born in Guatemala, at least a dozen minors in the group hold dual citizenship with Mexico. Neither government has made an effort to relocate the villagers or provide them asylum.

The group is seeking an immediate return to Guatemala, but has not ruled out seeking asylum in Mexico. Barred from visiting their plots until September, the villagers lost 80% of the year's harvest.

The Inter-American Commission of Human Rights sent investigators to visit the displaced community, documenting the dire conditions in the camps and criticizing the government's behavior. With the help of human rights groups, the community has sued the government in Guatemala's constitutional court.


"We are farmers, how will we work here?" Obdulio de Jesús Chomá, the community's leader, told Prensa Libre. "I just want to return to my land, we aren't asking for the moon."

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FOCUS: Russia-Ukraine War

That Man In Mariupol: Is Putin Using A Body Double To Avoid Public Appearances?

Putin really is meeting with Xi in Moscow — we know that. But there are credible experts saying that the person who showed up in Mariupol the day before was someone else — the latest report that the Russian president uses a doppelganger for meetings and appearances.

screen grab of Putin in a dark down jacket

During the visit to Mariupol, the Presidential office only released screen grabs of a video

Russian President Press Office/TASS via ZUMA
Anna Akage

Have no doubt, the Vladimir Putin we’re seeing alongside Xi Jinping this week is the real Vladimir Putin. But it’s a question that is being asked after a range of credible experts have accused the Russian president of sending a body double for a high-profile visit this past weekend in the occupied Ukrainian city of Mariupol.

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Reports and conspiracy theories have circulated in the past about the Russian leader using a stand-in because of health or security issues. But the reaction to the Kremlin leader's trip to Mariupol is the first time that multiple credible sources — including those who’ve spent time with him in the past — have cast doubt on the identity of the man who showed up in the southeastern Ukrainian city that Russia took over last spring after a months-long siege.

Russian opposition politician Gennady Gudkov is among those who confidently claim that a Putin look-alike, or rather one of his look-alikes, was in the Ukrainian city.

"Now that there is a war going on, I don't rule out the possibility that someone strongly resembling or disguised as Putin is playing his role," Gudkov said.

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