Yesterday, we reported on an emergency meeting between officials of Panama and Colombia to deal with the unprecedented passage of U.S.-bound illegal migrants through their respective countries.
Today, Bloomberg expanded upon that issue, detailing the crisis in Panama. That country’s Foreign Affairs Ministry says that more than 19,000 migrants walked to Panama from Colombia last month, compared with only 1,007 in January. Haitians and Cubans predominated, but more than 30 different countries, from Bangladesh to Sierra Leone, were represented.
According to Bloomberg, most of the Haitians had left their country years ago and had been working in Chile until a change in the law there made it harder for them to stay. Other Haitians had been living in Brazil. As for the so-called “extra-continental” migrants–such as those from Uzbekistan, Angola, and Egypt, most of them fly into South American countries with lax visa requirements then trek north.
Perhaps the most difficult section of the route is the infamous Darien Gap, that section of jungle bridging Colombia and Panama through which no road passes. Colombian officials are reporting that no fewer than 10,000 migrants are currently encamped in the small town of Necocli near the southern edge of the Gap, awaiting their trip through it. As for Panama, it currently is temporarily hosting 3,000 migrants in camps, whom it expects to provide with free transport to Costa Rica, as they continue their exodus to the U.S.
Virtually all these migrants, although they travel through a whole series of safe countries far removed from their supposedly troubled countries of origin, have only one destination in mind: the United States. And countries like Panama, rather than secure their own southern borders, are allying themselves with smugglers to hurry the migrants along their way north.
For more, see Bloomberg News.