More than 500,000 migrants have crossed the Darién jungle in 2023, a historical record

More than 500,000 migrants have crossed the dangerous Darien jungle on their way to North America so far in 2023, a historical record of individuals who crossed this natural border between Panama and Colombiamost of them Venezuelans, official sources informed EFE this Wednesday.

Of the 501,297 migrants who have crossed what is known as the Darién Gap so far this year, Venezuelan nationality is “the one with the highest income with 320,465 (…) followed by the Ecuadorian with 54,757 migrants,” revealed the source of the Panamanian authorities.

With approximately an average of more than a thousand daily arrivals, this new record number leaves behind the 248,000 in 2022 and the 133,000 in 2021.

In the second week of last November, the Panamanian authorities had already identified more than 468,000 migrants who had arrived in the country on that date, on their way to the United States through the Darién jungle, which connects the south of the continent with Central America.

The Government accuses the countries of South America, especially neighboring Colombia, of turning their backs on the migration problem, in the management of which the Central American country has invested close to US$70 million in recent years, according to official data. .

Panama registers the migrants upon their arrival in the indigenous populations at the exit of the jungle or in the migratory reception centers where they are given shelter and food, and then coordinates the departure by buses to Costa Rica, a trip that they must pay for themselves. themselves.

Thus, for years Panama has been applying this controlled flow operation, which consists of hosting irregular migrants in stations installed both on the southern border (Darién) and on the northern one, in Los Planes de Gualaca, near Costa Rica.

At these stations, the Panamanian authorities take the biometric data of the migrants, give them health care and food, and board them on buses that the travelers themselves must pay for and that, until now, left them at the Paso Canoas border.

But at the beginning of last October, Panama and Costa Rica activated a “humanitarian corridor” for the direct transfer of migrants to Costa Rican territory.