2023-06-01 11:25:00
(CNN Spanish) — At least 10 people, presumably migrants, were found drowned in the Darien jungle in Panama, the director of the country’s National Migration Service, Samira Gozaine, reported on Wednesday.
The official said in statements to the local press that in recent weeks the national Border, Aeronaval and Migration services have rescued several corpses. “We have rescued about 10 corpses (…) in the rivers, unfortunately.”
Gozaine added that some people “continue insisting on crossing despite the mighty rivers.” He reported that as of this Wednesday some 170,000 migrants have entered the Darién jungle on the Panama-Colombia border irregularly.
“20% of that population are children, 50% of that population are under 5 years old, newborn babies. We have seen mothers with newborn babies walking the trail and exposing them to serious dangers”, explained the Director of Migration.
The official explained that they do not receive information on all the migrants who enter the jungle from Colombia, “so we do not know how many people may be staying in the jungle, because we do not know how many to expect.”
Gozaine said that he does not rule out that the migrants are dammed at some point and that the Government of Panama is working on a campaign to offer correct information about what it means to cross that dangerous route.
The official reported that “the number of migrants has been reduced a bit. (This Tuesday) 790 people entered through the trail and we continue to think that it is because of the flooding of the rivers.”
The Darien Gap, one of the most dangerous migration routes in the world
CNN walked with migrants through the treacherous Darien Gap Credit: Natalie Gallón/CNN
Thousands of migrants who risk crossing the Darien Gap, a remote, trackless stretch of mountainous rainforest that connects South and Central America, risk their lives by the presence of masked robbers and rapists, as well as suffering exhaustion , snake bites, broken ankles. They may meet murder and starvation on the dangerous path.
Despite such a threat, nearly 250,000 people made this, one of the busiest and most dangerous treks in the world, in 2022.
In February 2023, a team of CNN journalists made the roughly 70-mile journey on foot, interviewing migrants, guides, locals, and officials about why so many risk themselves, facing unforgiving terrain, extortion, and violence.
The route took five days, beginning on the outskirts of a Colombian coastal town, through farming communities, up a steep mountain, through rivers and through dense, muddy jungle before arriving at a government-run camp in Panama.
Along the way, it became apparent that the cartel that oversees the route makes millions from a highly organized smuggling business, shoving as many people as possible through what amounts to a hole in the fence for immigrants moving toward the far north, the American dream is his only motivation.
Those who dare cross this biting route did so in response to economic and humanitarian disasters, nearly double the number of people from the previous year and 20 times the annual average from 2010 to 2020. Early data for 2023 showed that the number of people who made the journey from January to March multiplied by six, 87,390 compared to 13,791 last year, a record, according to the Panamanian authorities.
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