Migrants walk in a caravan bound for the United States, in Tapachula, state of Chiapas, southern Mexico, on Sept. 4, 2021. Migrant caravans traveling from Central America to the Mexican border with the United States became frequent since 2018. Photo: Xinhua

Mexican police dispersed a caravan of about 400 mainly Central American migrants on Sunday who had been hoping to walk to the US border.

Ending the fourth such procession in a week, police intercepted the group as it prepared to leave the town of Huixtla in southern Chiapas state, AFP observed.

It was made up mainly of people from El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala, Haiti and Venezuela.

Police blocked streets that the travelers would need to use to get out of the town onto a northbound highway, making some arrests while others from the procession fled further into Huixtla.

The police also took up positions on the highway itself to keep the caravan from reforming.

About 80 people were arrested in the operation and would be deported, according to a police source.

A member of the National Guard was injured in the operation, authorities said.

"We are asking for asylum in Mexico, we do not want to go there [the US]," Alexander, a man traveling with his wife and eight-year-old grandson, fleeing violence in El Salvador, told AFP.

Like other recent caravans, this one had set out from the Mexican town of Tapachula on the border with Guatemala.

It did so amid a heavy presence of Mexican national guards bent on stopping asylum-seekers hoping to reach the US for a better life.

Two migration agents were suspended for hitting a traveler.