15.02.2023
At least 33 people died and more than 20 were injured, when the bus in which they were traveling, along with more migrants, bound for the United States, collided with another vehicle on a highway in Panama, authorities reported.
The largest firefighter in the province of Chiriquí, Edilberto Armuelles, specified that in the accident, which occurred at 4:30 local time on this Wednesday, February 15, 2023, at least 33 people died and another 23 were injured.
Among the injured there are at least five minors, two of them with serious injuries, according to local media reports. No details on the identity of the deceased have yet been released.
According to the information available, 66 occupants were traveling in the transport, including the driver and the assistant. The migrants, in transit, were in shelters in the province of Darién, on the border with Colombia, and were transferred to another in Chiriquí, on the border with Costa Rica.
Panama receives these travelers at stations where they take their biometric data and offer them health and food assistance, after which they are transferred by bus to the border with Costa Rica to continue on their way.
Crash after trying to maneuver, according to media
“We hadn’t had these accidents with buses and fatalities for several years,” said the Deputy Commissioner for Traffic of the National Police, Emiliano Otero.
Bus accident with migrants in Panama.
The Minister of Public Security, Juan Pino, confirmed that both Panamanian nationals and “migrants who were in transit” through the country were traveling on the transport. Pino regretted this “painful event, which nobody wants” to happen, and stated that we must wait for the results of the investigations to know precisely what caused the accident.
So far the exact causes of the accident and the nationalities of the occupants of the bus are unknown. Several injured were taken by ambulance to the hospital in the city of David, head of the province of Chiriquí, according to the authorities.
According to local media, the bus driver mistakenly did not stop at the shelter near Gualaca where travelers were supposed to rest before continuing to the Costa Rican border. After noticing this and turning around to go to that place, the bus collided with a minibus.
migrant record
Thousands of irregular migrants arrive from Colombia walking through the exuberant jungle, where a missing section of the Pan-American highway has never been able to be built due to vegetation, rivers and swamps. Many die on that journey. This 266 km-long and 575,000-hectare jungle border is a route fraught with dangers, such as wild animals, mighty rivers, and criminal groups.
Despite this, and according to data from the Panamanian Government, in 2022 248,000 people entered Panama through the Darién, a figure that pulverized the records of the previous year, when 133,000 migrants made the crossing. They are mostly Venezuelans, although there are also Ecuadorians, Haitians and Cubans, as well as Africans and Asians.
To help travelers, the Panamanian government, together with different United Nations agencies and other international organizations, has set up several camps for humanitarian assistance to migrants.
“This traffic accident is unfortunate, they are people who are looking for better living conditions […]but it is part of the risk” of making this journey, said the national director of Migration, Samira Gozaine, to the local press. She added that the buses with migrants to Paso Canoas “use the night hours to travel, because there is less traffic “, so the trip is usually safer, faster and “cooler”.
The Panamanian president, Laurentino Cortizo, expressed his “much sadness” at this event and stated that “the Government of Panama provides all medical attention to the wounded.”
rml (efe, afp, last update 15:40 CET)