HRW: The Gulf Clan receives about 68 million dollars annually for controlling the Darién

Clan del Golfo, the main criminal group in Colombia that completely controls the Colombian area of ​​​​the border with Panama, received about 68 million dollars last year from the passage of more than 500,000 migrants who crossed the dangerous Darien jungle on their way to North America. , according to reports from Colombian authorities revealed this Wednesday by Human Rights Watch (HRW).

«The presence of the Gulf Clan on the Colombian side, which controls the migratory routes, charges resources to the guides and even provides a type of security services that means that, according to the Colombian authorities themselves, about 125 dollars from each migrant would end up in hands of the Gulf Clan, which would mean that last year they would have obtained close to 68 million dollars from the control of this trafficking.explained the director for the Americas of HRW, Juanita Goebertus.

The Human Rights organization today presented the report ‘Abandoned in the jungle: Protection and assistance for migrants and asylum seekers in the Darién Gap’ where it denounces, through two years of investigation and more than 300 interviews, the negligence of Colombia and Panama to manage the crisis.

Murders and rapes

Last year more than half a million people, especially Venezuelans, crossed this dense and mountainous jungle, where migrants face natural dangers such as river floods or attacks by animals and insects, as well as robberies, sexual violations and even homicides and disappearances. .

In the first three months of 2024, more than 100,000 people have already crossed, so «this year may end up at 800,000 or even a million«, according to Goebertus.

It is paradoxical that a criminal group is responsible for the safety of migrants: «The documentation we have done is that the criminal control carried out by the Clan del Golfo on the Colombian side seeks to prevent different types of crimes from being committed by these smaller criminal groups that would alert the authorities and affect traffic. of drugs controlled by the Gulf Clan«said the director of HRW for the Americas.

It reveals great negligence on the part of the Colombian State in its duty to protect and guarantee, but also of the Panamanian State, since it is in its territory where almost all crimes are committed.

Panama’s responsibility

«We have documented that, usually, when you cross the border to Panama, it is where the most cases of theft occur, very serious cases of sexual violence especially against women and LGTBI people, cases of forced disappearance and even homicide.“said Goebertus.

On the Panamanian side they are mainly «smaller bands, not necessarily articulated«, that when the groups of migrants arrive «They arrest them, steal their belongings, separate them by nationality and gender; That’s where sexual violence happens the most.«.

When the groups of women and girls are separated, extortion begins, under the threat of rape: «It is given precisely as a kind of punishment for the non-delivery of certain resources«.

Doctors Without Borders (MSF) assures that it has treated more than 1,300 people for sexual violence between April 2021 and January 2024, in cases where there is under-registration, and after these complaints, the Panamanian authorities banned them from providing care in the country.

«The solution is not to expel an organization like MSF, it is to take seriously the type of cases that are being reported after there is medical attention from a humanitarian organization and take the task of investigating, prosecuting and sanctioning them, which is what Panama does not do. is doing“said Goebertus.

Faced with a crisis that is not going to end, and that is very likely to worsen, given the unstable electoral situation in Venezuela, HRW called for “Panama and Colombia get serious about their international responsibility«.

Colombia has a clear “lack of strategy” in the face of this flow, leaving it in the control of the Gulf Clan, and Panama has a “very unfortunate” way of addressing it, since “it does not concentrate on the rights of migrants but on transporting them quickly – to sometimes forcibly – towards the other border.