At least 150 Salvadorans set off on Sunday from their impoverished Central American country in a U.S.-bound caravan, ignoring their likely rejection at the U.S.-Mexico border where a larger caravan of mostly Hondurans has been stalled for days.
Guarded by police officers, the men, women and children of the gathering caravan marched through San Salvador's streets to Guatemala-bound buses, loaded with heavy backpacks, water and the knowledge of an arduous 2,700-mile (4,300-km) trek ahead to the U.S. border.
The group from El Salvador was at least the fourth caravan to set off since a first, large-scale mobilization in neighboring Honduras, which departed on Oct. 13 from the crime-wracked northern city of San Pedro Sula.