The Colombian Ombudsman’s Office reported this Friday that the number of migrants who have crossed the Darien Gap to Panama in search of reaching North America has quadrupled, thus reaching historic levels.
According to the report, while in January 2022 the passage of 4,702 people had been reported, for the first month of 2023 this figure rose to 21,307 migrants, most of them Haitians, Ecuadorians, Venezuelans, Chinese and Indians.
Faced with this situation, the Ombudsman, Carlos Camargo, called on the governments of Colombia and Panama to address the situation of migrants to reduce the risks of rights violations.
“It is urgent that the authorities implement actions to attend to this population group together with the transit and host communities, which means establishing medical attention points, assistance for children and the elderly, as well as controls by the authorities so that migrants do not become victims of networks of migrant smuggling and human trafficking, among other risks associated with migration processes,” said Camargo.
The official made “a call to the Ministry of Transportation and the Superintendency of Transportation to intensify surveillance and controls on the mechanical state and permits of the buses that are transporting migrants, and avoid situations such as a bus accident of special transport in the Cañón de la Llorona, between the Dabeiba and Mutatá municipalities, which was transporting 38 migrants.”
Camargo was referring to the controls on those who offer transport services to migrants to take them to the Colombian town of Necoclí, the last step before reaching neighboring Acandí, Colombia, the entrance pass to the Darién Gap.
The nationalities that most crossed this dangerous jungle corridor that connects South America with Central America in 2022 were Venezuelans, with 150,327; Ecuadorians, 29,356; Haitians, 22,435; Cubans, 5,961; and Colombians, 5,064. Other people of extracontinental and Caribbean origin represented a total of 247,284 migrants.
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