Guatemala is a hotspot for the migration route in Central America. Thousands of people transit the country every day on their way north towards Mexico and the United States, or back to their home countries after being deported.

In 2023, we sent a mobile team to Ciudad Tecún Umán, a city close to the border with Mexico. At the bus station, we offered general medical and psychological care, as well as health promotion and social support to help migrants tackle barriers in accessing medical attention and other services such as protection, shelter, and legal guidance. In September, we started to offer these same mobile services in Esquipulas, a municipality close to the border with Honduras.

Like all MSF activities in Central America, the project has a strong advocacy component, mainly targeting repressive US migration policies and calling for greater access to care, particularly mental health services, and protection of migrants from violence.

After three years of working on our Mesoamerican nephropathy project, we handed over activities to the Ministry of Health. The main activities of the project, focusing on kidney disease, were early detection, treatment, mental health and social support, and palliative care. We also ran health promotion and education activities to increase knowledge of the disease and promote prevention measures at community level.