Dehydration, respiratory infections and diarrhea. Barefoot and with mangled limbs, often without toenails. More than 80% are traumatized by having witnessed or suffered acts of violence suffered sexual assault.
That’s the brutal balancing act of traversing the Darien Jungle, one of the world’s most dangerous migration routes. Trauma and pain are on full display in San Vicente, one of two Panamanian cities with immigration stations caring for the thousands who manage to survive.
“To the health problems we must add the duel. Not only for having left the known place, but also for the people who have lost along the way, the agony of arriving and standing at the fence waiting to see if a relative will finally arrive. It is a scene of deep suffering”, he says in dialogue with clarion from Bogotá Ana María Cerón, Advocacy Manager of Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) in Colombia, affiliate of the NGO that deals with assistance to Darién.
Médecins Sans Frontières was installed in San Vicente in April 2021, when the first signs had already been detected that on the border between Colombia and Panama a humanitarian crisis was brewing. Although the Darién has long been used as a migratory route, it was considered so dangerous that few people dared to embark to cross it.
A jungle trip of approx.Before 160 kilometers long by 50 wide connecting South America with Central America, its complex geography and the presence of criminal elements on both sides of the border made it a supreme challenge through which only a few thousand migrants per year circulated.
To get an idea of the difficulties it presents, when the Pan-American Highway that runs from Alaska to Argentina was built in the 1930s, the only section left unfinished was the one that crossed the Darien Jungle.
Everything began to change in 2021. According to the Panamanian authorities, in the first nine months of last year, around 95,000 people crossed the Darién. In all of 2021 there were 134 thousand migrants. The numbers for 2022 are even more pressing. The Panamanian immigration authorities say that, as of October of this year, 151,582 people crossed the Darién jungle.
The rate at which the number of people is growing is also increasing. While in April there were just over 6,000 people crossing, in May the number was already more than double, with almost 14,000. In September there were already 48,204.
Behind the explosion in the number of migrants is a complex tangle of factors, from the economic crisis exacerbated by the pandemic to a recent waiver of US immigration laws, including the virality of success stories on social networks which spreads an optimistic message to thousands of migrants who are desperately trying to hold on to the smallest shred of hope.
a hellish jungle
Most migrants arrive on the Panamanian side via two routes. The least dangerous is the most expensive: you have to pay $400 to get a boat and then they cross the jungle by walking for two or three days until they reach Canáan Membrillo, the transit community in the province of Darién that they reach after this route.
There is another, cheaper, but significantly more dangerous route. It consists of walking between seven and ten days through the jungle to Canáan Membrillo, a journey where people are constantly reported. robberies, assaults and cases of sexual assault.
Source: Clarin
