GUATEMALA CITY - A group of hundreds of US-bound migrants has disintegrated in Guatemala a day after setting out from neighbouring Honduras, with about 200 detained and a smaller group allowed to continue with travel documents, the authorities said on Jan 21.

On Jan 20, Guatemalan Migration Institute spokeswoman Alejandra Mena said about 200 migrants had been detained near the border with Honduras.

About 80 people with the documents required to transit through Guatemala were allowed to continue their journey, Ms Mena said in an update on Jan 21.

Local media said a caravan of about 500 people – mainly Venezuelans – had set out from the northern Honduran city of San Pedro Sula on Jan 20 – the first such group to leave the country this year.

It was made up of people of several different nationalities.

Since 2018, caravans of thousands of people hoping to find a better life in the United States have set out from Honduras to try and cross Guatemala and Mexico on foot.

Often driven from their home countries by poverty and violence, many had by then already crossed the inhospitable Darien gap between Colombia and Panama.

More than half a million crossed the gap in 2023, mainly fleeing economic misery in Venezuela but also from Ecuador, Haiti and other countries. AFP