Fractures, lack of water, food. An injury or a shortage of food can lead to death in the Darién jungle, the natural border between Colombia and Panama that hundreds of migrants cross every day, preventing the difficult advance along cliffs, trails and rivers. Some die, others manage to survive through the solidarity of anonymous travelers.
“I fell, I stepped on a mud hole and I fell, hitting all the weight of my body,” Venezuelan Elsy explains to EFE while pointing to her leg. She sways, but they soon hold her back so she doesn’t fall. “I was left alone until I got them,” she says, and looks around.
Elsy is surrounded by a dozen Venezuelan compatriots, mostly young people. They are on the bank of the Tuquesa River a few meters from the town of Bajo Chiquito, the first indigenous settlement after crossing the Darién for days. They will soon be able to rest after what they experienced in the jungle, where they claim that seven bodies were found, “with a day or two of dead people.”
One of the Venezuelans in the group explains that they found Elsy “weak, she was barely breathing,” but she recovered after administering IVs, feeding her, and carrying her on a stretcher. “We rested it in places that have shade, we rested it for a while, half an hour, then we continued.”
Request
It was the woman’s son, about ten years old, who begged them to help his mother. “He asked us, crying, to (…) please swear that we were going to bring him his mother, that he needed his mother,” explains another young woman, and then points to a companion, “the protagonist,” who came to the rescue.
“It’s a life, I don’t wish it on anyone. I just want to see him and tell him ‘there’s your mother’. I told him that I wouldn’t leave her lying around, and I brought her to him,” explains the young man with a broken voice, crying, and thank the rest for the help.
Elsy was lucky. According to the ‘Missing Migrants Project’ of the International Organization for Migration (IOM), so far this year at least 170 migrants have died or disappeared while crossing the Darien, mostly due to drowning (92), followed by violent acts ( 35), and 19 due to accidents, illness, extreme environmental conditions or lack of water and food.
Since they began counting cases in 2014, the project has recorded 440 deaths, with 2024 as the year in which the most deaths have been recorded, followed by 2022 with 146, and 52 in 2023, when there was a historical record of migrants who crossed Darién, with 520,000.
This despite the fact that, according to data from the Panamanian authorities, there has been a decrease in the number of migrants crossing the Darién, with 274,444 until October 13, 36.5% less than the 432,211 registered in the same period of 2023.
On Friday, Panamanian security forces reported the rescue of a 49-year-old woman. Her teenage daughter had arrived in Bajo Chiquito warning that her mother had a fracture and could not continue. After locating her, they transported her by canoe to the town, where she received medical attention.
“I am a jungle survivor”
After spending a night in Bajo Chiquito, the migrants continue the journey by canoe to the Lajas Blancas immigration reception center, where they receive attention from Panamanian authorities and international organizations, before continuing their route by bus to North America.
In the shelter, in an indoor area with dozens of tents set up, is Eva Mendoza, still traumatized by what she experienced in the jungle.
“We had about six days in the jungle, horrible, inexplicable jungle. We saw dead people, at least in my case I lost my family, my group, and I was out in the open in the jungle with my two children, I am survivor of the jungle,” she says, until “the Red Cross” was able to rescue her in a canoe.
Mendoza explains that “she was dehydrated” and her feet “had second-degree burns.”
In one of the wooden cabins at the immigration center is Colombian Carolina Castillo with her six- and 14-year-old children. She has been there for almost four months, waiting for her husband to recover in a hospital in the Panamanian capital after suffering an accident in the jungle.
“We were camping and the downpour caught us, lightning hit a tree and the tree fell and covered our camp (…) He broke his leg, head and hip, and he has been hospitalized there for four months now “, he says, although he adds: “He has improved a lot, he will be leaving the hospital soon.”
Pseudonym
The Venezuelan Ángela (she is a pseudonym, she asks not to be identified), says that 14 people, including seven children, left to cross the Darién, but that this group was gradually increasing in the jungle with “many single mothers with their children” who were “abandoned” for advancing slowly.
In the end they gathered 45 children in their group.
“Of course, since they don’t keep up with the rhythm and they are big children, you have to carry them and everything, so they leave them on the road and they wait for the groups that continue and join together. We saw deaths on the journey, injured people, we treated After rescuing a man, we left him in another camp, but I just found out that an older man, about 60 years old, died,” he says.
Other migrants also talk about that man, an Ecuadorian police officer. Ángela insists that they tried “to rescue him but nothing, he had the wound, it was serious, and he was already very dehydrated, so it was impossible.”
Panama City / EFE
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**Interview with Elsy: A Survivor from the Darién Jungle**
**Interviewer:** Thank you for joining us, Elsy. You’ve just gone through an incredibly harrowing experience crossing the Darién jungle. Can you tell us what led you to undertake this dangerous journey?
**Elsy:** Thank you for having me. I’m from Venezuela, and like many others, I left home in search of a better life for my son and me. The poverty and violence back home have made it impossible to survive. I thought crossing the Darién would be challenging, but I didn’t realize just how perilous it could be.
**Interviewer:** You faced serious challenges during the journey. Can you share what happened when you fell?
**Elsy:** I fell into a mud hole and injured my leg. It was excruciating. For a time, I was alone and weak. I thought I might not make it. Luckily, other travelers found me and helped. They gave me IV fluids and carried me on a stretcher. Without their solidarity, I might not be here now.
**Interviewer:** That sounds terrifying. You mentioned that there were bodies found in the jungle. What can you tell us about that?
**Elsy:** Yes, we were told that seven bodies were discovered nearby, people who didn’t survive the journey. It was a grim reminder of how lethal this path can be. We constantly lived in fear, not knowing if we would be the next to face such a fate.
**Interviewer:** It must have been a traumatic experience for you. How do you feel about the support you received from other migrants?
**Elsy:** Their kindness was incredible. There was a young man who carried me and promised my son he would bring me back to him. It’s hard to express how much that meant. In the midst of suffering, I found hope in strangers who became family in that moment.
**Interviewer:** Now that you have reached Bajo Chiquito, what are your hopes for the future?
**Elsy:** I just want to see my son safe and to heal from this experience. I want to continue on our journey to North America, where I hope for a better life. But I will never forget what we went through. It’s important to raise awareness about the dangers of this crossing.
**Interviewer:** Thank you for sharing your story with us, Elsy. Your courage is inspiring, and we hope for the best for you and your son in the future.
**Elsy:** Thank you for listening. I hope our story reaches others and helps to bring attention to the plight of migrants everywhere.
