“We come from Brazil and Chile. We are looking for a good life,” 33-year-old Haitian Paul Pierre told Efe, who arrived in Panama along with dozens of fellow countrymen through the jungle of Darien, the dangerous migration route through the North. America is trying to reach.
Evans is on his way to Mexico. He travels with his son of about 6 years old and is orphaned by a mother. She died in Chile of covid-19, said this young Haitian mechanic with his limited Spanish, who left the southern country in late January.
“We were out of work there (in Chile). My son’s mother died of the pandemic.” The idea of this trip is “the opportunity to go to Mexico and get a good question for us, for the people who want to build a good life,” he added.
Many Haitians came to Brazil to build the stadiums for the 2014 FIFA World Cup, and after the work was completed, they went to other South American countries. In addition to the difficulties in obtaining papers to settle legally, the crisis that resulted from the pandemic, which left them without a livelihood and prompted them to seek other horizons, now in North America.
This was explained by the islanders to Efe in Bajo Chiquito, a remote Panamanian indigenous village situated on the banks of the Turquesa River and near the jungle border with Colombia.
This dangerous jungle of Darien is the route Haitians, Cubans, Africans, and Asians follow to enter Central America on their way north. In the thickets of the mountain, they are victims of assaults, rapes and many are killed by falling from the cliffs, such as those in the area known as “la loma”, according to travelers’ testimonies.
It took Wednerson Similhomme, a 25-year-old Haitian, almost 6 days to cross the jungle with his wife and young daughter.
“People die on the way, there are people who can’t walk. When you come in here”, to the town of Bajo Chiquito, “it’s better than in the jungle, where there are mafias, with guns … here we are safer,” says this craftsman against Eph.
BAJO CHIQUITO, THE NATIVE HOSTEL THAT WELCOMES MIGRANTS
Bajo Chiquito is the first stop in Panama for at least 276 irregular migrants, out of a group of about 700, who left Colombia after Andean authorities reopened its land borders, closed for months by the pandemic.
This route registered minimal movement in 2020 due to the closing of the borders due to the pandemic, although the flow never stopped completely; Last October, Panamanian authorities reported that more than 1,000 migrants had arrived via Darien in two months.
In Bajo Chiquito, the migrants, families with small children in many cases and very few who wear masks, mingle with the inhabitants of the city. They bathed in the river, where they also washed their clothes and set up dozens of small colored tents on the walkways and in front of the houses, where they sleep, waiting to continue.
Travelers lined up to give their information to immigration officials.
“We have to be patient. If we have to wait, we can do it, we are family,” Wednerson Similhomme told Efe, who is striving to arrive with his wife and daughter in Miami, USA, where he has a family and believes that life can be “easier” thanks to a job “in everything, in fruits like in Chile, that allows” to take care of the family “.
Lázaro Fondicheli, a 45-year-old Cuban traveling with his 34-year-old wife, says they have been ‘practically kidnapped’ in Bajo Chiquito: ‘they tell us that we cannot leave on our own, that if we don’t have 25 dollars that we cannot leave. In a place where everyone knows that we have been attacked several times on the road, women and men are raped, after so much suffering, where do we get $ 25 to get out? “.
“We lie here without water, without bathroom, sleep in tents that we bring ourselves, they rent cabins for $ 5 per person that are in dire condition. There is no medical attention, they come here with very serious foot injuries, I am very damaged, my wife has a serious health damage, she has a fever, no one has come to treat her, ”he added.
Panamanian authorities are taking steps to deal with this renewed migratory flow from Colombia, bearing in mind that Panama is the only Central American country to open its borders as early as January 29, National Migration Service officials told Efe (SNM ) and the National Border Service (Senafront).
The Ombudsman, Eduardo Leblanc, has said that the migrants arriving in Bajo Chiquito will be quarantined for 14 days and that once infection from the novel coronavirus has been ruled out, they will be transferred to La Peñita, another indigenous town. in Darién that it has already served as a migration station and has collapsed.
According to official figures obtained by Efe, there were about 1,000 migrants in Darien up to February 9: 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 there are in Los Planes de Gualaca, the Panamanian asylum located near the border with Costa Rica, a country that still keeps its land border closed and that only, in a coordinated way with Panama, a humanitarian movement so that Nicaraguans can return to their country, Panamanian and Costa Rican officials told Efe.
THE EFFORTS OF PANAMA AND THE UNITED NATIONS SYSTEM
Every year, thousands of irregular migrants relocated by people smugglers from South America to Panama and on their way to the United States arrive in a stream that has sparked humanitarian crises in the Central American Isthmus in recent years.
Idiam Osorio, an official with the International Organization for Migration (IOM) in Panama, emphasized to Efe the “efforts” of the Panamanian state in the face of “all the challenges posed by migration” of this type to make it “safe,” orderly. “
The proof of these efforts is the San Vicente shelter, with a capacity to receive about 400 people, located in Darién and built by order of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACHR): there are modular houses, bathrooms, washrooms, walkways. and health services.
A resolution of the Inter-American court last May ordered the Panamanian state to solve the problems of overpopulation and guarantee access to health services for migrants in Darién, which at the time was over 2,500.
“Having a space that meets, as far as possible, the minimum humanitarian standards required for habitability, water management, access to rights and related services” is the product of a “concerted, coordinated, comprehensive humanitarian response of the system of the United Nations, “the government of Panama and key actors involved in the management of the pandemic,” Osorio said.