The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) confirmed that the United States has returned 1,000 immigrant children who have been separated from their families to their countries since last March despite the risks of violence and discrimination due to the Corona pandemic.
Reuters quoted UNICEF as saying that “Mexico also returned at least 447 migrant children to Guatemala and Honduras during the same period,” warning that “the children who were returned by the United States to Mexico faced additional risks because of their possible HIV infection.”
“Covid 19 makes matters worse … discrimination and attacks have now been added to existing threats such as gang violence that prompted these children to leave first,” said Henrietta For, executive director of the organization.
“This means that many returning children are at double risk and at greater risk than they were in their communities when they left,” she added.
The international organization indicated that it is “making efforts throughout the region to support the local child protection systems.”
And it was reported that Guatemala‘s indigenous Maya towns threatened to burn or execute the homes of some of the returning migrants after tests had shown that more than 100 people deported by the United States were infected with the Corona virus.
In June 2018, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights called on the United States to stop detaining the families of illegal immigrants and separating children from their families, noting that these practices are contrary to international law, while UNHCR affirmed that the conditions in which the countries of the majority of immigrants come give them The right to international protection.
Source : Sana
