A few weeks ago Helen Yovanna Mata, a 16-year-old Honduran girl, turned up at Corinto, a scruffy crossing on the border with Guatemala, with a backpack and a few papers. Two of the papers were death threats scribbled in scratchy ballpoint, another was a school document validating her story. One of the notes said: "We're not kidding. You now have seven days [to leave]. We don't want to hurt you, but you have to believe us. Death." It was signed "m18", the name of a violent Central American street gang. Honduran officials let her through to Guatemala, her first stop on an arduous journey north to the United States. No one knows if she got there.
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