Illegal migrants return to Guatemala

On Tuesday afternoon they received notice to leave Belize within seventy-two hours. As it turns out, forty-five illegal Guatemalan settlers in Toledo didn’t need that long. Word from the Ministry of National Security is that as of three o’clock Wednesday afternoon all of the squatters who set up two farming communities in the Columbia River Forest Reserve have returned across the border. Their expulsion was witnessed by representatives of the media as well as Human Rights Commission President Simeon Sampson. While the makeshift buildings in the settlements are being dismantled, it is understood that the farmers will be allowed to come back in a few weeks to harvest their corn and carry it back across the border. The BDF will continue to patrol the area, some two miles from the Guatemalan frontier.