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Drowning, sexual violence, or robbery: Pick your route through the Darién

As the contested Venezuela election sparks fears of a new exodus, a new US-Panama plan could force migrants into even more dangerous journeys.

People are photographed as the cross a part of a river in the Darién Gap Joshua Collins/TNH
Migrants cross one of the Darién Gap’s many rivers in early April 2024. On 24 July, Panamanian authorities reported finding the bodies of 10 people who had drowned.

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As the number of migrants and asylum seekers crossing the Darién Gap – the treacherous jungle trek connecting Colombia to Panama – has dramatically risen in the past few years, different routes have emerged, each with its own challenges and risks.

The local organisations helping people traverse the region – as well as the criminal groups who profit from their passage – have grown more sophisticated and given some relative structure to the once-impenetrable jungle crossing.

But the risks of drowning, sexual violence, or robbery haven’t gone away and, as governments in the region impose new restrictions, the dangers of those travelling northwards trying to reach the United States are only likely to increase. 

Last year, more than half a million people crossed the Darién Gap. As of 22 July, the number this year had reached over 216,000. The largest group in 2023 – 328,650 people – came from Venezuela, and there are fears of a new exodus after the country’s increasingly authoritarian leader, Nicolás Maduro, was accused of stealing the 28 July presidential election.

Earlier this month, Panama’s recently elected President José Raúl Mulino signed an agreement with the United States to halt the influx of migrants. Under the deal, Mulino vowed to “close the Darién”, and US President Joe Biden’s administration agreed to cover the costs of deporting migrants who enter Panama illegally.

The Panamanian government has since closed at least five access points to the Darién Gap, erecting razor wire across more than 4.7 kilometres of the border and posting armed guards on some of the main paths, which has been met with strong criticism from human rights and humanitarian aid organisations in the region.

Read more: Colombia ombudsman office slams new US-Panama plan

The Ombudsman’s Office of Colombia released a communiqué sharply criticising the Panamanian decision to shut down the Darién Gap, saying the decision “threatens the human rights” of not only migrants but also “Indigenous communities who live in the region”, restricting their right to movement and liberty. It called on Panamanian migration authorities to “respect the right to asylum and refuge under international law”. The statement also criticised the razor-wire barriers, saying the obstacles “risk the physical integrity of the migrants”, some of whom have already been injured in the jungle crossings.

Panamanian officials, for their part, have backtracked on deportation promises, announcing that flights will start in two or three months, and will include only migrants who take them willingly.

Historically, criminal groups have proven more nimble than governments in adapting to disruptions in migration policy and law, and that trend is only likely to continue. Migration globally is also growing, due to economic, conflict and climate related push-factors.

“This underscores the need for countries to work together on this issue in an ever-changing world,” said Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, policy director of the American Immigration Council. “We need international cooperation to address these issues humanely, and share solutions for migration push-factors across the region.”

There is no state presence in the Darién, either Colombian or Panamanian, and even minor injuries can become life-threatening due to lack of available medical attention. Migrants face significant dangers, both physical and criminal during the 2-3 day jungle crossing. The lack of infrastructure and tropical downpours increase the likelihood of falling on the slippery and muddy terrain. Wild animals are also a threat, and migrants often contract digestive diseases due to water contamination.

The growing medical caseload

In 2023, before Panama forced them to suspend their activities in the Darién, Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) provided assistance to 676 survivors of sexual violence, a figure that didn’t represent the full scale of the problem, as many cases go unreported.

But that’s only when migrants manage to survive the crossing. Between January 2021 and March 2023, the Panamanian authorities found a reported 124 bodies on the route, mostly people who had drowned, but that is believed to be merely a fraction of the real number of deaths as many also go unreported.

Senafront, Panama’s border authority, said in a public statement on 21 July that its objective is to establish one single “humanitarian path” that leads to Bajo Chiquito, an Indigenous community town that has some services, and then on downriver to Lajas Blancas, where there is a migrant reception centre and assistance from local and international aid groups.

Efforts to stop irregular migration without addressing the underlying factors don’t keep migrants away but push them onto more dangerous routes. Panamanian officials reported that 10 migrants drowned on 24 July near a remote Indigenous village called Carreto. 

The regional trend to toughen up border policies – largely due to US pressure on countries across Latin America and the Caribbean to limit the numbers of migrants travelling north – has increasingly forced migrants to rely on smugglers and informal paths to cross borders, exposing themselves to even greater risks. 

As migration in the Darién Gap evolves and adapts, The New Humanitarian explores the characteristics and challenges of three principal routes that have emerged – all with their own unique prices and dangers.

The eastern land routes

Migrants bound for the most commonly used routes across the Darién depart from the towns of Necoclí or Turbo on Colombia’s Caribbean coast, crossing the Bay of Urabá by boat before arriving at staging areas constructed to aid them in their passage. 

They typically disembark at Acandí and continue inland before crossing the mountainous jungle terrain of the Darién in a 2-5 day journey that ends in Lajas Blancas, after a stop in Bajo Chiquito, Panama. The dangers they face are many: from the hazardous terrain (river crossings and steep ascents), to diseases from contaminated water, to animal attacks.

 

Panamanian officials recently placed razor wire at the Panama-Colombia border on the main path used by migrants, as well as armed guards. However, according to conversations with migrants, as well as journalists who have recently visited the Darién Gap, those crossing simply walk around the border and are undeterred by the measures.

The Colombian side of the border is controlled by the country’s largest criminal group, the Clan del Golfo – also known as Gaitanist Self-Defense Forces of Colombia, or just the Gaitanistas – which regulates and profits from migration, while keeping it away from their drug smuggling routes further inland. 

Acting as a de facto state, the Gaitanistas impose a monopoly of violence on the regions they control, a dynamic that counter-intuitively means the Colombian side of the Darién Gap is actually relatively safe for migrants. 

On the Panamanian side of the border, however, migrants are preyed upon by criminal groups, who have committed robberies, extortion, and sexual violence.

In addition to the main land passage through Acandí, a second “VIP land route” has evolved departing from the Colombian town of Capurganá – a shorter trip that offers mules and horses to carry people’s baggage and has less exposure to dangers on the Panamanian side. 

However, it comes with a hefty price tag. Migrants who spoke to The New Humanitarian during a month-long investigation in the region mentioned prices ranging from $2,500 to as much as $10,000. The route is principally used by migrants from Asia, the Middle East, and Africa from less impoverished backgrounds than those taking the Acandí route. 

The Gulf of Urabá is an important dispatch point for cocaine – a decades-long trade that has made the Gaitanistas and its leadership immensely rich. Although migration is an increasingly important revenue stream for the group, drug trafficking continues on a massive scale.

With international organisations and the government focused on migration in Acandí, the Gaitianistas have more freedom to carry out drug trafficking through Unguía and Riosucio. Very few migrants transit these municipalities, limiting the presence of authorities in the area.

The western coastal route

A less popular and less well-organised maritime migration route from Colombia to Panama exists along the Pacific coast. The route was originally used by the Gaitanistas for cocaine smuggling, and is still occasionally used for this.

Passengers pay $150 to $300 to depart from Juradó, Colombia, and travel northwards towards La Palma, Panama, making stops along the way, often in Jaque, just on the Panamanian side. 

Passage is irregular and occurs when enough migrants have gathered in Juradó rather than daily, such as in the eastern land routes. The route is organised by boat pilots who also work occasionally for the Gaitianistas, retrieving cocaine dumped by smugglers if they are approached by authorities or spilled in rough seas. Called pesca blanca, “white fishing” in English, these boat pilots retrieve the cargo and resell it to Gaitanista smugglers.

This maritime route is less reliable than the inland routes. Both the International Crisis Group and InSight Crime have documented cases of migrants being abandoned by boat captains on Panamanian shores far from camps and any official assistance.

Migrants also face the risk of shipwreck and, upon arrival, still have to hike inland facing many of the same risks as those traversing the more established land routes.

Bypassing the Darién

Several Central American countries, as well as Mexico, have imposed stricter visa controls in recent years. Migrants from many countries wishing to travel to the United States who used to fly into Mexico, Honduras, or Costa Rica, now have to go through the Darién Gap.

Partly due to this pressure, which financially incentivises irregular migration, a number of sea and air routes have emerged that bypass the dangerous Darién Gap crossing.

For example, Nicaragua has recently begun issuing visas to migrants who can afford steep processing fees, resulting in an increase in the number of inter-continental migrants using the country as a travel hub, particularly from Asia and Africa.

Read more: The ever-evolving inter-continental path

The dynamics of migration are constantly changing, and the Darién Gap has increasingly become a destination for people travelling to the US from African, Asian, and Middle Eastern countries.

Chinese nationals have become a major part of inter-continental migration through the Darién Gap and represented the fourth largest nationality crossing by land into Panama in 2023, with their numbers soaring at the US border as well. 

Ecuador, which has become one of the main departure points for journeys into the Darién Gap for migrants arriving from Asia, recently announced that it will start demanding visas from Chinese nationals, in part due to US pressure.

Peru has also become a major starting point for those going north by land, and though not technically part of the Darién Gap, new migrant paths have evolved from Peru and Ecuador through Colombia and into the region, creating pressure on transit countries to provide for their humanitarian needs.

The country also stopped demanding visas from Cuban citizens in late 2021. As a result, the number of Cubans crossing the Darién (once one of the largest origin countries) has dropped drastically. In a move that spurred tensions with the US government, Nicaragua also began offering entry to Haitians and an increasing number of African and Asian countries via charter flights.

Nicaragua has also become a destination for irregular sea routes. In recent years, sea passage from the Colombian island of San Andrés to the Nicaraguan coast has become popular for those wishing to avoid a dangerous land crossing, particularly Venezuelans.

While the exact numbers of those choosing this sea crossing are unavailable, the figure for irregular migrants arriving in San Andrés has spiked since 2021. The service is openly advertised to arriving Venezuelan migrants by “travel agencies” in cities on the Colombia-Venezuela border such as Cúcuta.

But passage is dangerous. In addition to known accidents at sea that have resulted in the deaths of hundreds, many more simply go missing – likely the victims of shipwrecks that go undocumented by authorities or the media.

Edited by Daniela Mohor.

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