Phnom Penh, Cambodia – On a March evening in 2017, Sorn Chanty was returning home from beauty school in Cambodia’s capital, Phnom Penh, when a man ran at her, grabbed her bag and threw acid in her face. 

When an ambulance eventually arrived, the crew told the 24-year-old, who was screaming, to get inside but refused to drive her to hospital or perform first-aid procedures.

Once her ex-boyfriend came to the scene, the crew agreed to take her to hospital but Chanty said when they got there, the driver refused to let her out of the vehicle until her former partner had paid $30.

They then had to pay another $25 to be allowed inside the emergency room, and an extra $60 on treatment before a labour union stepped in and funded the rest.

Chanty is one of 17 Cambodian survivors of acid violence featured in a report released on Tuesday by Human Rights Watch (HRW) accusing the country’s government of failing to enforce legislation it passed seven years ago that requires legal and medical support to victims of such attacks.

The 48-page study, What Hell Feels Like – Acid Violence in Cambodia, said while the number of attacks had sharply dropped,not one acid-attack victim interviewed had received free treatment – as enshrined in 2012’s Acid Law.

“Instead, survivors face the full range of problems anyone in need of emergency and other serious medical treatment faces in Cambodia, including denial of treatment until they show proof that they can pay or provide out-of-pocket payments,” HRW said.

“In May 2017, even the head doctor at the burn unit at Preah Kossamak Hospital – the largest public hospital in Cambodia and the only one with a dedicated burn unit – was unaware that acid victims have a right to be treated free of charge.”

Health Ministry Ly Sovann told Al Jazeera in a message that the government offered “free services to acid attack victims from public hospitals” but did not respond when asked as to why survivors claimed they had been forced to pay for treatment.

‘What hell feels like’

Cheap and easily available, acid has been used in deliberate attacks in nearly every part of the world, leaving victims scarred for life physically and emotionally.

Cambodia is among the countries with a troubling history of acid violence, experiencing a sharp increase in reported cases in 2000. 

The Cambodian government finally took steps to curb the problem with the passing of the Acid Law, imposing tougher sentences on those found guilty of such crimes and making it easier – and cheaper – for survivors to get treatment.

But even though the legislation led to a fall in the number of attacks – at least 25 have been reported since the law came into effect compared with 36 in 2010 – few cases have made it to court and fewer still to a conviction. Even those found guilty have rarely served out their sentence.

“While the Cambodian government has passed legislation to curb the availability of acid used in such attacks and to provide accessible healthcare and legal support to victims … perpetrators rarely go to prison and victims rarely receive adequate healthcare or meaningful compensation,” HRW said.

‘His body is scarred after I threw acid on him’

One evening two years ago, after yet another beating from her drunken husband, 41-year-old Phun Sreang picked up a bottle of acid and poured it over his face as he slept.

“At that time, I was so angry with him because he had beaten me so many times after he had been drinking,” Sreang told Al Jazeera from her home in Cambodia’s Tbong Khmum province. The couple had been married for 20 years.

The liquid immediately started eating into the skin around the face and body of Sreang’s husband, 54-year-old Roem Til. Despite being rushed to hospital, he lost all the sight in his left eye and some in his right.

Sreang was arrested, but swiftly released because her husband did not want to see her prosecuted. Now, Sreang is her husband’s carer.

“He is still hurting and he cannot walk,” Sreang said. “He has scars on his body after I threw acid on him.”

Acid still remains relatively easy to buy despite the regulations on the production and sale of the liquids that were introduced in the legislation.

It took Al Jazeera only an hour to find a goldsmith tool supplier who was willing to sell acid – four litres for $5 – even though the law requires that all purchasers of acid must present an “identification card and/or license authorisation stating the professional occupation relevant to the usage of strong acid”.

The situation has been made worse by the end of civil society support for the victims of acid attacks.

Funding for the Cambodian Acid Survivors Charity (CASC) was reduced, and the organisation shut down entirely in 2015.

Erin Bourgois, who spent two years as CASC’s project manager before it folded, said the organisation’s goal, like any non-profit, was to put itself out of business.

“It was an emotional time and hard to see the impact it had on survivors as we phased out these services,” Bourgois told Al Jazeera. “We were hopeful that the [government] would fulfill its promise in enforcing and implementing the law to further reduce acid attacks and assume the responsibility of providing support to survivors,” she said.

While the Acid Law had been “pivotal” in reducing acid attacks and violence, she said the government now needed to deliver.

“Without proper implementation, acid attacks will continue and survivors will not receive the critical support services needed to heal and achieve justice,” she added.

Back in Tbong Khmum, Sreang, a cassava farmer, says she would welcome more support as her husband is almost immobile and cannot work.

“Our relationship is better than before the acid attack and he cannot use violence like before,” she said. “He loved me so much that he was so jealous and got angry with me, mistreated and hurt me.”

Sreang said she will always harbour deep regret for her actions that day.

“People should not throw acid because it causes the victim to feel pain like my husband. It’s also difficult for us, we feel regret and pity for him.”

This story was reported with a Cambodian journalist who requested their name not be used due to fears it could jeopardise their current job.

Image: Patrick Smith / Getty Images

Chinese communities on Tuesday began celebrating the Lunar New Year, an occasion for families to get together for intimate dinners and welcome the last of the Chinese zodiac’s signs, the Pig.

The Lunar New Year is the most important holiday of the Chinese calendar, with hundreds of millions of people travelling to celebrate it with their families in what is the world’s largest annual human migration.

In mainland China, authorities were expecting a total of almost three billion trips by car, train and aeroplane in the 40 days surrounding the holiday.

On Chinese New Year’s Eve, families hold traditional dinners and watch a marathon televised gala. Children receive red envelopes filled with money for good luck.

Events such as traditional lion dances are held in decorated public spaces while supermarkets stock up on mooncakes and tangerines.

Festivities will take place across the globe, from Southeast Asia’s centuries-old Chinese communities to the more recently established Chinatowns of Sydney, London, Vancouver, Los Angeles and beyond.

Despite a slowing economy, more Chinese are travelling abroad during the holidays, booking family trips to Thailand, Japan and other top destinations.

Authorities were expecting an average of 1.77 million international trips per day this week – an 8.9-per-cent increase compared to last year.

Celebrations in major Chinese cities, including Beijing and Shanghai, were more quiet than usual after authorities last year banned fireworks due to pollution and safety concerns.

In Hong Kong, flower markets were filled with residents picking out orchids, mandarins and peach blossoms to decorate their homes – with stalls also boasting a dizzying array of pig-themed pillows, tote bags and stuffed toys.

Thousands of incense-carrying petitioners crammed into the city’s famous Wong Tai Sin temple overnight, a popular location to mark the first prayers of the New Year.

In Japan, the capital’s famous Tokyo Tower was due to turn red in celebration of the New Year – a first for the city. 

Parades and lion dances in Western cities such as New York and London were expected to draw large crowds.

Taiwan’s President Tsai Ing-wen used her social media accounts to deliver a political sideswipe at Beijing with a message highlighting the island’s democratic credentials and linguistic pluralism.

“In Taiwan, we are able to maintain our cultural traditions,” she said in a video in which she delivered the traditional new year greeting in five Chinese languages: Mandarin, Taiwanese, Hakka, Teochew and Cantonese.

China still sees Taiwan as part of its territory to be reunified, despite the two sides being ruled separately since the end of a civil war in 1949.

Relations between Taipei and Beijing have had a rocky start to 2019 after Chinese President Xi Jinping delivered a bellicose speech last month describing the island’s unification with the mainland as “inevitable”.

Tapachula, Mexico – The church bells were chiming at 3am, but Juan Alberto Orellana was already awake. He and other Central American migrants and refugees were preparing to head north on Sunday from Tapachula, in southern Mexico.

The central plaza was abuzz with activity as people got up from their pieces of cardboard, blankets, and patches of dirt and concrete. For the hundreds of people who slept in the plaza and others arriving from other neighbourhoods, getting ready did not take long.

Like most people, everything Orellana brought with him from Honduras fit into a small backpack. He left home on January 19, fleeing poverty. Work in the banana plantations around his hometown of Olanchito did not pay enough to get by, he said.

“People cannot live in Honduras,” Orellana told Al Jazeera in the plaza on Sunday, as he waited to begin the collective trek north.

“The cost of living is really high,” he said, adding that the high rate of violent crime was also a factor in his decision to leave Honduras.

Orellana joined the roughly 2,000 migrants and refugees leaving Tapachula on foot. Many hope to make it to the US, while others plan to remain in Mexico, but the destination on Sunday was Huixtla, a town 41km up the highway in the state of Chiapas.

Tens of thousands of Central Americans have fled over the past four months in a series of highly visible large groups called caravans. The overwhelming majority are from Honduras, followed by El Salvador and Guatemala. 

The group that set out on Sunday from Tapachula is part of the latest wave of the ongoing exodus. A caravan left Honduras on January 15, and other groups, families and individuals have been streaming up to the Tecun Uman border crossing between Guatemala and Mexico ever since.

Humanitarian visas

During the second half of January, migrants and refugees benefited from a temporary special policy established by the Mexican government, under a new administration that took power on December 1. The government has been issuing renewable one-year humanitarian visas that permit people to live, work and travel throughout Mexico. 

Between January 15 and 29, Mexican officials processed 15,552 humanitarian visa requests at the border. The National Immigration Institute announced Sunday it had issued 11,255 visas, having fully processed 72 percent of the applications.

Most of the 2,000 Central Americans who departed from Tapachula on Sunday had obtained humanitarian visas. For many of them, travelling with a caravan is not a choice; they cannot afford transportation.

Migrants and refugees spread out for kilometers along the highway a few hours into the walk, taking breaks in the shade of mango trees. Eventually, Kenia Marisol Alvarado and many others got rides to Huixtla from passing trucks.

Alvarado left home in a remote rural area of the Santa Barbara department of Honduras more than two weeks ago with her husband and their eight-year-old son. She and her husband both worked as agricultural day labourers when they could, but the work was sporadic and only paid six dollars a day.

Like many Central Americans issued humanitarian visas, Alvarado and her family are planning on staying in Mexico. But they have no savings and had never left Honduras before, so they are travelling up into Mexico with the caravan until they can get their bearings and figure out the best place to look for work to support themselves and the other two children, aged three and six, they left with relatives back in Honduras.

“We came to work and also to be able to pay school costs for our kids. The situation [in Honduras] is extreme. There is no work,” Alvarado told Al Jazeera.

Alvarado’s family and another family with young children were dropped off at the highway turn-off to Huixtla by a passing pickup truck driver. Alvarado’s son was in good spirits. “That’s an A!” he exclaimed excitedly, pointing at the last letter in the town name, spelled out in large rainbow letters at the side of the street into town.

The family does not have to worry about immigration checkpoints because they have humanitarian visas. But not everyone in the caravan has them. The Mexican government ended its temporary special policy without warning after two weeks, suddenly announcing January 29 that it would accept no new applicants.

We came to work and also to be able to pay school costs for our kids. The situation [in Honduras] is extreme. There is no work.

 Kenia Marisol Alvarado, Central American caravan participant 

Central Americans were still streaming to the Tecun Uman border crossing and many are still stuck in limbo, while others have crossed into Mexico without processing. Further north, another caravan is travelling up through Mexico without humanitarian visas.

When waves of Hondurans and Salvadorans began arriving at the border between Guatemala and Mexico in mid-January, there was initially an immense amount of mistrust regarding the Mexican government’s promises of visas. 

For years, Mexico has been deporting more Central Americans than the US. Past experiences and policies led many Central Americans to believe the visa request process was a ruse to deport them, and hundreds of people avoided the process and crossed Mexico. By the time the group arrived in Mexico City last week, they numbered more than 2,500.

Mexican immigration officials set up in the capital city stadium serving as a migrant and refugee shelter and once again offered humanitarian visas for those. As of Sunday, 661 people had taken them up on the offer and 590 had already been issued visas at the stadium, according to the National Immigration Institute.

‘Remain in Mexico’ policy

Some 1,400 people from the advance caravan had already arrived Sunday in El Saltillo, Coahuila, in northern Mexico. Instead of following in the footsteps of every caravan last year and heading to Tijuana, they will go to a Mexican city bordering Texas, either by Eagle Pass or Laredo, according to Agencia Reforma, a Mexican newswire. 

The migrant and refugee caravan that departed Sunday from Tapachula has tentative plans to go to Tijuana, but news of violence, deteriorating shelter conditions, lack of employment opportunities and long wait lists to seek asylum in Tijuana has travelled south. Several people travelling with the group, as well as others leaving independently told Al Jazeera they will head to other border areas instead. 

Tijuana is now the site of the controversial Remain in Mexico policy, under which the US returns asylum seekers to Mexico to await court dates and the outcome of their cases. Implementation of the policy, now dubbed the Migration Protection Protocols, began last week and is currently only in effect at the San Ysidro port of entry between Tijuana and San Diego.

The policy has come under fire from immigrant rights and support groups. Homicides in Tijuana homicide rate hit an all-time high last month, and the regulations could also push migrants and refugees to travel to other border areas along routes controlled by criminal and paramilitary groups.

On Friday, Mexico detained and deported Nora Phillips, the legal director of Al Otro Lado, an immigrant rights group that works closely with and litigates on behalf of Central American migrants and refugees in Tijuana. Her passport was flagged for unconfirmed reasons, as was that of the group’s policy director Erika Pinheiro, who was denied entry to Mexico last month.

ALERT!! Our Legal Director and Litigation Director have been REMOVED from Mexico. Apparently the US govt issued security alerts on our passports to prevent us from traveling. Our Legal Director is being returned on a flight that lands at LAX terminal 2 at 12:10. Please SHOW UP

— Al Otro Lado (@AlOtroLado_Org) February 1, 2019

US President Donald Trump continues to focus on the border. Claiming the advancing caravans are a threat to security, he persists in his demand for border wall funding. If not met, he could once again shut down the federal government this month. He has also threatened to declare a national emergency to build the wall – a move that would likely be met with legal challenges.

“With Caravans marching through Mexico and toward our Country, Republicans must be prepared to do whatever is necessary for STRONG Border Security. Dems do nothing. If there is no Wall, there is no Security,” Trump tweeted on Sunday.

‘To avoid gangs, you had to leave’

Danilo Rivera wants to make it up to the border, but he does not plan to cross into the US. More than anything else, he just wants to see his kids again. 

Rivera first left San Pedro Sula, Honduras in 2001, when he was 21 years old. Fleeing street gangs establishing themselves in the country, he made it to Los Angeles, where he lived for 15 years.

“The only way to stay out [of the gangs] was to leave my country,” Rivera told Al Jazeera in the Huixtla town plaza, where other migrants and refugees were arriving and seeking out shaded areas to rest.

In 2016, Rivera’s wife was expecting their second child. Rivera returned to Honduras to apply at the US Embassy for residency as the spouse of a US citizen. But he had been unable to cover the lengthy and costly process of applying for a pardon for a drug possession charge years earlier, and his application was rejected.

Rivera has been trying to make it back to his kids ever since. He made his way up through Mexico three times over the past three years, successfully evading Mexican immigration officials. But he was apprehended in the US and deported every time.

The only way to stay out [of the gangs] was to leave my country.

Danilo Rivera, Central American caravan participant

Rivera left San Pedro Sula for a fourth time in recent years on January 17, on the heels of the caravan that departed two days earlier. He expected to have to once again ride the dangerous La Bestia train and hope to make it to the US undetected by Mexican immigration officials.

The humanitarian visa policy came as a surprise. Rivera’s plan now is to settle in Mexicali and find work. He will remain separated by the border from his family, but he is hopeful that his now ex-wife will bring their two children, aged three and 10, to visit.

“I want to thank Mexico for this opportunity,” said Rivera. “It’s a dream I had not anticipated.”