CITY OF PANAMA.- A boat that transported migrants shipwrecked on the Caribbean coast of Panamain front of the inhospitable Darién jungle, leaving an undetermined number of dead.
The shipwreck occurred at dawn near Carreto Bay, an isolated town on the Atlantic coast of Darién in an area inhabited by the Guna Yala ethnic group, said the National Border Service (Senafront, border police).
“Today (Wednesday) in the early hours of the morning, information was received about the discovery of bodies of lifeless migrants due to immersion,” Senafront said in a statement, without specifying the number of victims, adding that it sent search patrols to the area of the shipwreck. .
The Panamanian channel TVN indicated on the confirmed by the authorities.
“At the moment we do not have survivor information nor do we have nationality, they are right now in the operation,” a Senafront spokeswoman told AFP.
“We are also not sure of knowing how many were on that boat, because it is an illegal process, human trafficking, which is a crime,” he added.
Panama, a country of passage
“A boat entered national territory capsizing due to bad weather,” said Commissioner Rubén Moreno, head of Senafront’s second Caribbean brigade, in the area of the wreck.
“There are fatalities, as soon as information is collected we will let you know,” Moreno added in a video sent to the media by Senafront.
Panama is a transit country for thousands of migrants from South America, mainly Venezuelans, heading to the United States. The vast majority enter the country by crossing the inhospitable Darién jungle on foot from Colombia, and then continue traveling through the rest of Central America and Mexico.
“Search patrols have been deployed and the corresponding coordination is being carried out with the authorities of the public ministry (prosecutor’s office) and immigration in order to recover the bodies, rescue survivors and pursue the traffickers” of people who crewed the boat, Senafront said. , without specifying where the ship came from.
He added that the area of the shipwreck, near the border with Colombia, “is very complex for navigation due to the strong waves caused by the currents and winds.”
A record of more than half a million migrants entered Panama in 2023 through the Darién jungle, among them some 120,000 minors, according to official Panamanian figures.
It takes migrants between three and six days to walk across the natural border between Colombia and Panama, 266 km long and 575,000 hectares in area, where they face natural dangers, but also criminal gangs.
Last November, the organization Doctors Without Borders (MSF) said it had attended to more than 400 cases of migrants who were victims of rape in the jungle, 97% women, some of them girls.
2023 closed with 520,085 migrants who arrived in Panama after crossing the Darién, according to data from the Panamanian Ministry of Security.
At the top of the list are 328,667 Venezuelans, followed by 57,222 Ecuadorians, 46,558 Haitians and 25,344 from China, according to the ministry.
A year ago, 40 migrants died in Panama and twenty were injured after the bus that was transporting them from Darién to the border with Costa Rica went off the road. The Panamanian driver also lost his life.
Source: AFP
