Ten people drown in Panama river as migration risks escalate

Panama border police agency does not specify nationalities of those who drowned or how they crossed into country.

Ten people have drowned in a river near Panama’s border with Colombia, Panamanian border police say, as the rainy season increases the risks migrants and asylum seekers face along a popular migration route.

The bodies were found in riverside tributaries near the remote community of Carreto, the National Border Service, known as SENAFRONT, said on Wednesday.

The village lies on the Caribbean Sea and is part of the Guna Yala autonomous Indigenous territory.

SENAFRONT did not specify the nationalities of the people who drowned or whether they had crossed into Panama through the Darien Gap jungle or by boat.

“Transnational organised crime through local collaborators in these Caribbean coastal communities insist on using unauthorised crossings, putting the lives of these people at serious risk,” the agency added in a statement.

Connecting South and Central America, the Darien Gap is a dangerous route rife with natural hazards, including insects, snakes and unpredictable terrain.

Its landscape ranges from steep mountains to dense jungles and strong rivers, and the risks increase during the rainy season due to rising river levels.

Criminal groups also operate in the area, and robberies, extortion and other forms of violence are widespread.

Despite these dangers, it has become a popular route for migrants and asylum seekers fleeing violence, socioeconomic crises and other hardships in their home countries. Many hope to travel north to reach the United States.

More than 520,000 migrants and asylum seekers crossed the Darien Gap last year – more than double the total from 2022, according to figures from Panama’s government.

Of those who crossed in 2023, more than 60 percent were from Venezuela, which has experienced a mass exodus after years of socioeconomic and political upheaval. Others were from nations across South America, the Caribbean, Asia and Africa.

In April, Human Rights Watch said Colombia and Panama had failed to protect people transiting through the Darien Gap or adequately investigated abuses that have taken place there, including sexual violence.

“Colombian and Panamanian authorities can and should do more to ensure the rights of migrants and asylum seekers crossing their countries as well as of local communities that have experienced years of neglect,” Juanita Goebertus, the group’s Americas director, said at the time.

Panamanian President Jose Raul Mulino said this month that migrants entering the country through the Darien Gap will only be sent back to their countries if they agree.

Mulino, who took office on July 1, had promised to halt the rising flow of migrants entering Panama from Colombia and reached an agreement for the US government to pay for repatriation flights.

“This is a United States problem that we are managing. People don’t want to live here in Panama. They want to go to the United States,” he said in his first weekly news conference on July 18.

If migrants don’t want to return to their countries, “then they’ll go [to the US]. I can’t arrest them. We can’t forcibly repatriate them,” the president said.

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Al Jazeera and news agencies