(Adnkronos) – Requests for mental health support and the number of new patients treated by Doctors Without Borders (MSF)’s Integrated Care Center (CAI) for victims of extreme violence have increased in the last six months in Mexico City. MSF reports this in a statement highlighting how the increase is “linked to the continuing violence perpetrated along the migration route between Central America and Mexico by armed groups, belonging to both organized crime and security forces.” “Worsening the situation,” the organization denounces, “is also a series of harsh changes in the migration policies of the United States and other governments in the area.”
In the first quarter of 2025, MSF teams provided individual psychological assistance to 485 CAI patients, including not only people in transit or stranded in Mexico but also Mexican citizens. Compared to the previous three months, the number of individual psychological support sessions increased by 36%. During 2024, MSF teams in Mexico conducted an average of 300 to 350 individual sessions each quarter. Between January and March 2025, the most common conditions found in patients were post-traumatic stress disorder (48%) and depression (39%), followed by acute stress reactions (7%), grief, and anxiety. Faced with the increase in needs, MSF is asking public institutions and non-governmental organizations to strengthen assistance to migrants in Mexico who have survived violence and are seeking safety.
“Since the end of January, we have assisted people with serious mental health problems largely due to the impact of recent restrictive migration policies implemented by the United States and other governments,” says Joaquim Guinart, MSF CAI coordinator.
“In Honduras, our family was the victim of extortion by gangs, but with 4 children, we couldn’t afford to pay, so they first killed my son-in-law and then kidnapped me and my 2 children. They wanted to force my son to do bad things, to kill, and I was also exploited. After I had a heart attack from worry, I decided to leave and face the journey,” a woman who left Honduras told MSF teams in Mexico.
Among the executive measures adopted by US President Donald Trump in January is the declaration of a national state of emergency on the southern US border, which has effectively militarized migration control and led to the temporary suspension of the reception of refugees in the United States, the statement continues. Furthermore, even before the executive orders were issued, the new administration had already suspended the use of the Cbp One app which, despite its flaws, represented the only channel for applying for asylum at the southern US border. The impact of these restrictions, MSF continues, is further aggravated by cuts in funding for humanitarian programs, which seriously compromise access to safe places and basic healthcare.
“These sudden changes have left many people trapped in legal limbo, with no possibility of seeking asylum and no access to essential services or protection,” Guinart continues. These measures further reduce access to asylum and increase the risks for migrants, particularly children and other vulnerable groups, as people are pushed to take increasingly dangerous routes to seek asylum or remain trapped in unsafe places where they are exposed to a high risk of kidnapping, extortion, and sexual violence.
The CAI was opened by MSF in 2016 to provide assistance to victims of extreme violence and torture – with medical and psychological care, physiotherapy, and other services – and to help them regain their autonomy and heal physically and emotionally. In 2024, MSF teams identified 4,500 people who survived moderate or extreme violence. Of these, 186 received comprehensive assistance at the MSF CAI, while others received assistance through mobile and fixed clinics or were referred to other organizations. Although most of the people assisted are migrants, since the end of 2024, MSF has also taken charge of Mexican patients displaced or affected by violence in various parts of the country.
Between January 2024 and February 2025, MSF teams in Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, Costa Rica, and Panama assisted approximately 3,000 survivors of sexual violence and provided over 20,000 individual mental health consultations, many of which were necessitated by violence, displacement, and the difficulties of the migration journey.
