Maria Aguillon abandoned her home in a small town in southern Ecuador in December with her husband, three children and three grandchildren.
“We had to leave because there was a lot of killing. I lost a son,” she told AFP, in the San Jose shelter.
They crossed the Darien from Colombia, but her husband was stopped and sent back from Panama, so she continued without him, hoping to join two children living in the United States.
Now the 48-year-old is trying to find a job in Costa Rica.
Yaniret Morales, a 38-year-old mother staying at the shelter in Tegucigalpa, said she was “starting from scratch.”
She decided to return to Venezuela with her 10-year-old daughter, but only “to save up some money and emigrate to another country” — not the United States.
Although Central American governments say they are trying to help migrants go home, it is a chaotic process.
Panama and Costa Rica are confining migrants to shelters in remote border areas.
“They promised humanitarian flights, and nothing. Pure lies,” Palacios said.
“We’re returning to our country with broken dreams.”
© 2025 AFP