600 US-bound Africans stranded in Costa Rica after officials block route

About 600 US-bound Africans are stranded in Costa Rica after officials blocked a major migration route to America, leading local aid workers to warn of a humanitarian crisis if their number continues to rise.

African and Latin American migrants have long passed through Costa Rica on their way to the US, but their passage has been blocked by the authorities in Costa Rica and Nicaragua, the next country on the route north.

This has led to a buildup of people in the border town of Paso Canoas, where they are now sleeping rough in a makeshift detention camp.

Legally Costa Rica can only detain the migrants for 30 days at which point the government will either need to deport them or release them

The Costa Rican government says it has not decided what to do with them, and in the meantime they are being tended to by local Red Cross workers.