The Colombian Ombudsman’s Office warned this week regarding the worsening of the humanitarian crisis that exists on the border with Panama.
The ambassador in charge of the United States in Colombia, Francisco Palmieri, advised this Saturday Venezuelans seeking to cross the Darién Gap, on the border with Panama, not to risk their lives to reach the United States, because as of this week those who try to enter illegally are deported to Mexico.
Palmieri visited Necoclí this Saturday, in the Colombian department of Antioquia, where this week there were some 9,000 imprisoned migrants waiting to get a boat to take them to Acandí, in Chocó, to start their journey through the Darién.
The ambassador was in this Caribbean town with the Deputy Minister of Multilateral Affairs of Colombia, Laura Gil, because, as he said, all countries have “the responsibility to address the regional migration crisis.”
This week, the US government announced that from now on it will return Venezuelans who cross the southern border to Mexico, a measure with which it seeks to control migration.
Along with the announcement of the new reality on the border, the United States also created a new migratory relief program for Venezuelans with which they hope to “disincentivize” migratory movement through different countries in the region, including Panama and Mexico.
The program, which is similar to a benefit that the US already gives to people from Ukraine, has a limit of 24,000 applicants, a much lower number compared to the number of Venezuelans who have been arrested crossing the border with Mexico in recent months.
Only last August there were more than 25,000 arrests and in the last 11 months the figure rises to regarding 150,000, according to data from the Office of Customs and Border Protection.
Crisis in the Darien
The Colombian Ombudsman’s Office warned this week regarding the worsening of the humanitarian crisis that exists on the border with Panama, where there are currently some 9,000 migrants waiting to cross the Darien to North America.
This year “the migratory crisis is much more serious than that registered last year” and that “the number of people in human mobility who have passed to Panama exceeds 150,000, compared to the 134,000 migrants in all of 2021,” the agency added. .
While 4,415 migrants crossed the border in January of this year, 31,055 did so in August, which gives an idea of the increase in the number of people seeking to cross into Panama in order to continue their journey by land to the United States.
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