GUATEMALA - HONDURAS - EI SALVADOR

WITH A HOMICIDE RATE of 43 per 100,000 citizens, Honduras is one of the most violent countries in the  world, according to a Honduran university study.....................

TAPACHULA: President Donald Trump said on Monday that US will start cutting aid to Guatemala, Honduras, and EI Salvador as a caravan of thousands of mostly Hondurans migrants rolled on regardless towards the US border.

Trump kept up his almost-daily Twitter attacks on the approaching caravan, calling it a national emergency and said he had alerted the US border patrol and military.

''We will now begin cutting off, or substantially reducing, the massive foreign aid'' that the United States provides to three Central American countries, he said.

Mexican authorities had managed to block the ''caravan'' of migrants on a border bridge between Mexico and Guatemala, but many later crossed the river below in makeshift rafts before marching north.

The caravan of around over 5,000 migrants was heading on Monday to the town of Huixtla, around  40kms further on from Tapachula in Chiapas State where they slept Sunday night.

''Sadly, it looks like Mexico's Police and Military are unable to stop the caravan heading to the southern border of the  United States. Criminals and Middle Easterners are mixed in,'' Trump said in one tweet.

''I have alerted  Border Patrol and Military  that this is a  National Emergency [sic] . Must change laws!''

Activists say the journey through of at least  3,000 kilometers through Mexico to the US border could take over a month.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has warned that the migrants ''may be victimised by human smugglers or others who would exploit them.''

''We are also deeply concerned by the violence provoked by some members of the group, as well as  the apparent political motivation of some organisers of the caravan,'' Pompeo said in a statement.

The migrants are generally fleeing poverty and insecurity in Honduras, where powerful streets gangs rule their turf with brutal violence. [AFP]