It began as a group of about 160 people who agreed to leave together from the Honduran city of San Pedro Sula, relying on numbers to improve their safety on a trek in hopes of finding better lives in the United States.

Reports on the migrant caravan in local media quickly caught the attention of other Hondurans fed up with their country’s lack of jobs and excess of crime and people began flocking to join in, swelling the group to more than 1,000 as it approached the border with Guatemala on Oct. 12.

The caravan’s numbers continued to grow as the migrants walk and hitch rides through hot and humid weather. The United Nations estimated this week that it swollen to some 7,200 people, “many of whom intend to continue the march north.”

Children appear to make up about 5 percent to 10 percent of the people in the caravan, which is currently in southern Mexico, about 1,000 miles from the closest U.S. border.

Honduran migrants bound for the U.S border climb into the bed of a truck in Zacapa, Guatemala, on Wednesday, Oct. 17, 2018. (AP Photo/Moises Castillo)

Honduran migrants bound for the U.S border climb into the bed of a truck in Zacapa, Guatemala, on Wednesday, Oct. 17, 2018. (AP Photo/Moises Castillo)

Central American migrants traveling with a caravan to the U.S. crowd onto a tractor as they make their way to Mapastepec, Mexico, on Wednesday, Oct. 24, 2018. Thousands of Central American migrants renewed their hoped-for march to the United States on Wednesday, setting out before dawn with plans to travel another 45 miles of the more than 1,000 miles that still lie before them. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd)

Thousands of Honduran migrants rush across the border towards Mexico, in Tecun Uman, Guatemala, on Friday, Oct. 19, 2018. Migrants broke down the gates at the border crossing and began streaming toward a bridge into Mexico. (AP Photo/Oliver de Ros)

Honduran migrants hoping to reach the U.S. sleep in the southern Mexico city of Tapachula, on Monday, Oct. 22, 2018, in a public plaza featuring a statue of Mexican national hero Miguel Hidalgo, a priest who launched Mexico’s War of Independence in 1810. (AP Photo/Moises Castillo)

A Honduran migrant shows his blistered feet covered in talcum powder in Tecun Uman, Guatemala, on Sunday, Oct. 21, 2018. (AP Photo/Oliver de Ros)

Central American migrants traveling with a caravan to the U.S. crowd onto a tractor as they make their way to Mapastepec, Mexico, on Wednesday, Oct. 24, 2018. Thousands of Central American migrants renewed their hoped-for march to the United States on Wednesday, setting out before dawn with plans to travel another 45 miles of the more than 1,000 miles that still lie before them. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd)

Central American migrants making their way to the U.S. in a large caravan bathe using water from a fire hydrant at the main plaza in Tapachula, Mexico, on Monday, Oct. 22, 2018. (AP Photo/Moises Castillo)