A total of 106,838 foreigners passed through Colombia bound for other countries. A similar volume is expected this year.
The migration crisis that was experienced in Necoclí, Antioquia, during the last months of 2021 was just a sample of what happened throughout that year and what is expected for this one: thousands of Africans, Haitians and foreigners in general dammed up in that small territory without water, food or space to spend the night.
In 2021, the country’s immigration authorities registered a total of 106,838 migrants – more than 87% of them Haitians – who passed through Colombia and crossed into Panama through the dangerous Darién jungle on their way to the United States, a figure never seen before and that is greater than the sum of the previous 15 years.
While in 2020 Colombia counted 3,922 people who crossed its borders from south to north and in 2019 there were 19,040, the figures for last year were 2,624% higher than the previous one, according to data from Migración Colombia.
But the figures do not show an intention to decrease this year. In the first 17 days of 2022 alone, 896 migrants crossed.
These data, however, are lower than those provided by the Panamanian immigration authorities, which accounted for more than 130,000 people in 2021, which reveals a lack of coordination between the countries and does not help to find out how many people fell by the wayside. , abandoned in the jungle or in the sea.
the busiest month
August was the month in which more people arrived in Colombia through Ecuador and crossed it to Panama, with 27,899, a figure close to the 33,981 who passed through in all of 2016, the year that had the previous record.
At that time, between August and September –when 23,324 people crossed–, more than 10,000 migrants who were trying to get a ticket to go to Panama were held in Urabá Antioquia.
The Darién crossing, the jungle that divides Panama and Colombia and the only point that the Pan-American highway does not cross, is one of the most dangerous border crossings in the world: an uncontrolled area, used for illegal mining, smuggling, drug trafficking and hiding place for armed groups, and where migrants face inclement weather, animal bites and robbery, sexual assault and murder.
Precisely for this reason, the number of children and young people who face this journey is worrying. According to Migration, the number of minors who have crossed this year has also seen record highs. Unicef, for example, calculated that during 2021 one in five people crossing the Darién were children and half of them were under 5 years old.