“We come from Brazil and Chile. We are looking for a good life,” 33-year-old Haitian Paul Pierre told Efe, who, along with dozens of compatriots, arrived in Panama through the Darien jungle, the dangerous migratory route through trying to get to North America.
Evans is headed for Mexico. He travels with his son of about 6 years and orphaned by his mother. She died in Chile of covid-19, said this young Haitian mechanic with his limited Spanish, who left the southern country at the end of January last year.
“I was there (in Chile) without a job. My son’s mother died because of the pandemic.” The idea of this trip is “the opportunity to go to Mexico and receive a good question for us, for the people who want to make a good life,” he added.
Many Haitians came to Brazil to build stadiums for the 2014 World Cup and, after the works were completed, they left for other countries in South America. Added to the problems of obtaining documents to settle legally was the pandemic crisis, which left them without a means of livelihood and pushed them to look for other horizons, now in North America.
This was explained by the islanders to Efe in Bajo Chiquito, a remote Panamanian indigenous village located on the banks of the Turquesa River and near the jungle border with Colombia.
This dangerous Darien jungle is the route followed by Haitians, Cubans, Africans and Asians to enter Central America on their way north. In the thick of the mountain, they are victims of aggression, rape and many find their death when falling from rocks such as the one located in the area known as “la loma”, according to the testimonies of travelers.
Wednerson Similhomme, a 25-year-old Haitian, took almost 6 days to cross the jungle with his wife and young daughter.
“People die on the road, there are people who can’t walk. When you enter here,” in the city of Bajo Chiquito, “it’s better than in the jungle, where there are mafias, with weapons … here we are safer,” he says. master Eph.
BAJO CHIQUITO, THE INDIGENOUS POST THAT WELL MIGRANTS
Bajo Chiquito is the first stop in Panama for at least 276 irregular migrants, from a group of about 700, who left Colombia after the Andean authorities reopened their land borders, closed for months by a pandemic.
This route registered a minimal movement in 2020 due to the closure of the borders due to the pandemic, although the flow never stopped completely; In October last year, Panamanian authorities reported that more than 1,000 migrants had arrived through Darien in two months.
In Bajo Chiquito, migrants, families with small children in many cases and very few wearing masks, mingled with the city’s residents. They bathed in the river, where they washed their clothes, and set up small colorful tents on the alley and in front of the houses, dozens of them, where they slept waiting to continue their journey.
Travelers lined up to provide information to immigration officials.
“We have to be patient. If we have to wait, we can do it, we are a family,” Wednerson Similhomme told Efe, who aspires to arrive with his wife and daughter in Miami, where he has a family and believes life can be “easier” thanks to a job “in everything, in fruits like in Chile, which allows” to take care of the family “.
Lázaro Fondicheli, a 45-year-old Cuban traveling with his 34-year-old wife, says they are “practically kidnapped” in Bajo Chiquito: “They tell us that we can’t go on our own, that if we don’t have $ 25 per which we cannot leave. In a place where everyone knows that we have been assaulted on the road several times, women and men have raped, after so much suffering, where will we get $ 25 to get out? “.
“We live here without water, without a bathroom, we sleep in tents that we bring, they rent cabins with 5 USD per person who is in a terrible condition. There is no medical assistance, here he comes with very serious leg injuries, I am very damaged, my wife is in very poor health, she has a fever, no one came to treat her, “he added.
Panamanian authorities are taking steps to receive this renewed migratory flow from Colombia, given that Panama is the only country in Central America that has already opened its borders on January 29, officials from the National Migration Service for Efe (SNM) said. National Border Service (Senafront).
The Ombudsman, Eduardo Leblanc, said migrants arriving in Bajo Chiquito would be subject to a 14-day quarantine and that once the new coronavirus infection was ruled out, they would be taken to La Peñita, another indigenous town in Darién that served already as a migration station and collapsed.
According to official figures obtained by Efe, until February 9 there were about 1,000 migrants in Darien: 512 in Bajo Chiquito (276 arrived last Monday); 100 in Lajas Blancas; 375 in San Vicente; and none in La Peñita and 10 in Canan Membrillo.
It is not clear how many migrants are in Los Planes de Gualaca, the Panamanian shelter near the border with Costa Rica, a country that still keeps its land border closed and which has only allowed, in coordination with Panama, a humanitarian organization. corridor so that Nicaraguans can return to their country, officials from Panama and Costa Rica told Efe.
PANAMA EFFORTS AND THE UNITED NATIONS SYSTEM
Every year, thousands of irregular migrants displaced by human traffickers arrive in Panama from South America and head for the United States, in a flow that has generated humanitarian crises in the Central American isthmus in recent years.
Idiam Osorio, an official of the International Organization for Migration (IOM) in Panama, stressed to Efe the “efforts” of the Panamanian state in the face of “all the challenges that such a migration entails” to make it “safe”, orderly. “
Proof of these efforts is the San Vicente shelter, with a capacity to accommodate about 400 people, located in Darién and built following an order from the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACHR): there are modular houses, bathrooms, laundry, walkways and services health.
A ruling by the Inter-American Court in May ordered the Panamanian state to resolve the problems of overcrowding and guarantee access to health services for migrants in Darién, which at the time amounted to more than 2,500.
“Having a space that meets, as far as possible, the minimum humanitarian standards required for housing, water management, access to rights and related services” is the product of a “common, coordinated, comprehensive humanitarian response from the United Nations system, the Government of Panama and actors key people who were involved in managing the pandemic, “Osorio said.