Costa Rica is not only giving shelter in care centers, it is also providing medical services to all migrants who need it, including those that are mistreated while trying to cross Nicaraguan border. The Costa Rican government knows about these situations, due to Haitian and African migrants’ reports: they inform that they beaten while trying to reach the United States through Central America.
As explained by Minister of Communication Mauricio Herrera, these people are free and make the decisions, often without measuring the consequences.
Costa Rica has no legal authority to limit their traffic and that means that we cannot prevent them from leaving the country,
declared Herrera, who has been heavily involved in everything that has to do with the issue of migration.
A blockade by the Nicaraguan authorities at the border forces many of these people to decide to come back to Costa Rica and they go to these medical centers. They denounce being mistreated and beaten.
Costa Rica receives near 100 inmigrants every day and most of them are transferred to Santa Cecilia de La Cruz in Guanacaste, where there are more than 700 people.