America

13 migrants killed in bus accident buried

Clothes, junk and debris at the scene of the bus accident in Panama

The bodies of thirteen migrants who lost their lives a month ago when the bus in which they were traveling fell into a ravine in their transit to the United States they were buried on Friday in a cemetery in the border area with Costa Rica.

The remains, buried individually in a specific area of ​​the Los Guayacanes municipal cemetery, in the province of Chiriquí, belonged to migrants who have not yet been identified or claimed by relatives.

It was a solemn burial and was carried out one month after the death of 37 migrants, after the bus accident in which 67 displaced people were traveling, mostly Ecuadorians, Haitians and Venezuelans. They were on their way to a camp in the same province, on their way to the United States.

Some twenty identified bodies have already been handed over to their relatives in recent days. While in the morgue the remains of three minors, of Ecuadorian and Venezuelan nationalities, still rest, whose process of delivery to relatives is about to conclude.

“The burial has an order, an established protocol, in such a way that in the future if a relative arrives and wants to claim the remains of their loved one, this facilitates the work,” said the director of the Institute of Legal Medicine and Forensic Sciences, José Vicente Pachar, during the ceremony in the cemetery.

The entity said in a statement that the forensic information of the buried remains is registered in a database of the legal medicine authorities to help in the future identification of the bodies.

So far this year, some 50,000 migrants have crossed through the Darién jungle, one of the most dangerous sections that thousands of displaced people have traveled for years, mainly Haitians, Ecuadorians and Venezuelans, on their way to the United States.

In 2022, at least 36 migrants died – drowning, in most cases – in their attempt to cross it. The actual number could be higher as many perish in the jungle without their remains being reported or recovered. Nearly 250,000 migrants crossed the Darién last year, a record number.

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