Tuesday June 6, 2023
Miembros del Servicio Nacional de Fronteras de Panamá (Senafront) participan en la ceremonia de lanzamiento de la Operación Choco en Nicanor, provincia de Darién, Panamá, el 2 de junio de 2023. © LUIS ACOSTA / AFP
In the first five months of the year, a record of more than 166,000 migrants from South America have crossed the Darién, indicated the Panamanian Security Minister, Juan Manuel Pino.
“Panama police forces are going to increase the territorial control of our border due to the increase in crimes that are being committed by criminal groups,” Pino said when launching the so-called “Operation Chocó” in the jungle village of Nicanor, located about 220 km east of the Panamanian capital.
“We cannot accept for any reason that these people are attacked, outraged, in Panamanian territory,” the minister told reporters.
The natural border of the Darién, 266 km long and 575,000 hectares in area, is plagued by dangers such as wild animals and mighty rivers, but also by criminal gangs that rob migrants or demand payment to guide them on their journey.
“With what we have, we are going to make every effort to provide protection so that these vulnerable migrants are not attacked within our territory,” added Pino.
“Gulf Clan”
The head of Panama’s National Border Service, Oriel Ortega, said that “migrant trafficking” in the Darién is managed by the “Clan del Golfo”, a Colombian drug cartel.
“According to our intelligence reports, the entire network of migrant smuggling is being maneuvered, articulated and developed, specifically, by the Clan del Golfo narco-terrorist organization, on the Colombian side,” Ortega said.
“We have found Colombians robbing migrants, we have also found Colombian people taking trails or alternative roads to where our patrols are to evade territorial control,” he added.The Clan del Golfo is a feared narco army made up of 9,000 fighters that spread its tentacles to some 30 countries and traffic in about half of Colombia’s cocaine.
“This operation […] It is aimed at directly confronting transnational criminal action. We also invite Colombia to do the same on its side,” Ortega said.
On April 13, the UN warned about the “worrying” increase in migrants crossing the Darién in search of the American dream.
In 2022, a record number of almost 250,000 migrants crossed the Darién, where that section of the Pan-American highway has never been able to be built due to the exuberant vegetation, rivers and swamps.
Most were Venezuelans, Haitians and Ecuadorians, but also Asians, mainly from China and India, and Africans, mainly from Cameroon and Somalia.
More than 60 deaths this year
In addition to being at the mercy of criminal gangs in this jungle, some migrants die from accidents.
“In a week and a half there were about 10 deaths due to flooding or rising rivers and many people drowned, but there are more than 60 deaths this year,” said Minister Pino.
“The number of children is increasing, not only that they are passing through the trail, [sino] who are dying on the trail,” said Gozaine, without providing figures.
To bury the migrants who died in this jungle, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) recently built a pantheon with a hundred niches in the cemetery of the village of El Real de Santa María.