Washington, Nov 6 (IANS): A migrant caravan travelling on foot through southern Mexico to the US border overwhelmed the Mexican National Guard trying to contain its advance and resumed its march toward Mexico City.

The migrants and guard members clashed on the highway linking the towns of Pijijiapan and Tonala in Chiapas state, leaving at least two guard members injured and many people arrested, Xinhua news agency quoted local media reports as saying.

After the altercation, the caravan, composed of some 4,000 migrants, mostly from Central America and Haiti, has departed from Pijijiapan on its trek north toward Tuxtla Gutierrez, capital of Chiapas.

Luis Rey Garcia Villagran, an activist with the Center for Human Dignification and one of the organisers of the caravan, told local press they were asking for sympathizers to provide buses, so exhausted migrants could continue their journey.

The caravan first departed on October 23 from the city of Tapachula, which borders Guatemala, with the stated objective of reaching Mexico City to regularise migrants' immigration status before setting off again for the US border.

The Central American region is seeing an unprecedented exodus this year. Between January and August, Mexico had reported the entry of more than 147,000 undocumented migrants, tripling the number in 2020, according to figures from the Mexican government.