Communications Minister, Mauricio Herrera, visited on Wednesday Peñas Blancas, a border crossing towards Nicaragua, to oversee the construction of a facility to provide the basic health needs for African migrants stranded on their way to the United States.
Two weeks ago, a 23-year-old migrant male died of pneumonia on streets. The press reported the case of another African migrant hospitalized with tuberculosis.
On April 13th, Costa Rican immigration authorities granted freedom of movement throughout the country to African migrants. Since then, about 1,200 migrants have arrived at this border town in the province of Guanacaste.
Since November of 2015, Nicaragua has shut its borders to undocumented migrants, causing a migration crisis with 8,000 Cubans stranded in Costa Rica.
Without money to pay for hotels, African migrants are sleeping outdoors and use nearby rivers to clean themselves. Most of them do not have access to potable water.
Mayor Junnier Salazar said the situation is critical and assured that they do not have the resources to deal with over a thousand migrants.
Source: La Nación.