- According to the Prosecutor’s Office, there were six Venezuelans, three Vietnamese and one Colombian on board.
At least six Venezuelans, three Vietnamese and one Colombian are among the 10 migrants who drowned last July when a river flooded in a Caribbean area of Panama, near the border with Colombia, the Public Prosecutor’s Office of the Central American country reported on Friday, August 9.
The Panamanian Attorney General’s Office of Guna Yala began today the delivery of bodies of migrants who drowned in Carreto. Of the 10 victims, 8 have been identified by relatives. Results of forensic tests are expected to confirm the identity of 2. They are 6 Venezuelans, 3 Vietnamese and 1 Colombian,” the Panamanian Attorney General’s Office reported through X.
Eight of the 10 deceased migrants have already been identified by their families, while the identity of the remaining two is still pending. At the same time, the Public Prosecutor’s Office began handing over the bodies rescued on July 27 from a difficult-to-access area after several days of work.
The bodies of these migrants were found on July 24, although according to press reports the incident could have occurred a week earlier since the authorities are considering the theory that they were buried near a town by criminal groups to cover up their situation.
They died due to a river flood
The migrants died due to a river flood at a point on the “Carreto route” in the Panamanian Caribbean, which is more expensive because it shortens the crossing through the Darien jungle, the common border with Colombia, which is used as a migratory route to reach North America.
Along that route, passers-by pay up to $550 to take a boat from Capurganá, Colombia, to the community of Carreto, and then walk for two to four days through the jungle to reach the indigenous community of Canaán Membrillo, according to information from 2023 from the humanitarian organization Doctors Without Borders (MSF), which was providing services in Darién until its operating permit was renewed this year.
Authorities arrested on Wednesday some 13 “Panamanian citizens” accused of belonging to an organization that traffics irregular migrants, especially of Chinese nationality, through a “VIP” route, which begins in the Colombian Gulf of Urabá and includes the towns of Necoclí, Capitana, Carreto, Caledomoa, Canaán Membrillo or Zapallal, already in Panama, according to media reports.
Since the new administration of President Mulino began on July 1, several measures have been taken to try to reduce the flow of migrants through the dangerous Darien jungle, which has already been crossed so far this year by more than 216,000 migrants, most of them Venezuelans, while in all of 2023 there were more than 520,000, an unprecedented figure, according to official data from Panama.
Among these measures, since July 3, Panama has progressively fenced off with “perimeter barriers” (barbed wire fences) some 4.7 kilometers in Darien, where there were at least five unauthorized crossings or trails, to “channel” the flow of migrants through a “humanitarian corridor.”
With information from EFE
#Venezuelans #among #migrants #drowned #river #Panama
2024-08-10 04:26:39
