PBI-Mexico accompanies documentary filmmaker Manuel Valcarce in Saltillo, Coahuila

On February 11, the Peace Brigades International-Mexico Project posted on social media, “Within the framework of its presence in Saltillo, PBI accompanies the renowned documentary filmmaker Manuel Valcarce…”

PBI-Mexico continues, “[This is] with the aim of highlighting the legitimate work of the Saltillo Migrant Shelter’s director Alberto Xicotencatl as well as its members who fight for protection and defense of the rights of migrants.”

As Valcarce notes on his website, he is “a Spanish documentary photographer & Filmmaker based in London [who is] particularly drawn to social issues and human rights.”

He also recently directed four short films produced by PBI-United Kingdom: Media Freedom in Honduras (June 2019), La Búsqueda – The Search (November 2019), The Defenders (December 2019), and SOMOS (January 2020).

You can read more about those films and watch them online here.

The Saltillo Migrant Shelter is located in the city of Saltillo (about 185 kilometres south-west of the American border city of Laredo, Texas) which is in the state of Coahuila (that shares a 512-kilometre border with Texas).

PBI-Mexico has noted, “The Saltillo Migrant Shelter offers daily humanitarian assistance — including clothes, medicines, food, rest, and medical and psychological care — to hundreds of migrants crossing Mexico to reach the United States. It also defends migrants’ rights through the documentation of cases of kidnapping, extortion, abuses and violations that they suffer during their journey through Mexico.”

Because of this migrant justice work, and the militarization of the border, the staff and volunteers at the shelter have suffered harassment, surveillance and threats.

PBI-Mexico has accompanied the Saltillo Migrant Shelter since 2014.

Peace Brigades International in Mexico, the United States and Canada will be co-organizing a tour with a representative from the Saltillo Migrant Shelter in the coming weeks. Watch for more details on that soon.