In December, I rolled out of bed and into the warm, humid early morning in Panama City at 3:00 in the morning. I had been invited to participate in an encounter planned by Como nacido entre nosotros, an advocacy campaign and network focused on migration with Latin American churches and faith-based groups, and the early wake-up time was in the service of the final activity of the event: a visit to a migrant reception centre in remote Darién.
Darién is Panama’s southernmost province and home to the infamous Darién Gap—a stretch of jungle so impenetrable that the Pan-American highway, which stretches from Alaska to Argentina, breaks off here before restarting in Colombia. Part of the area is a national park, and home to the Emberá-Wounaan and Kuna Indigenous peoples. Due to its remoteness and thick jungle, the region is difficult to monitor and police, which makes it fertile territory for armed criminal groups.
Changes to visa requirements in Central America and Mexico mean that migrants who could have once purchased an airline ticket from South American countries and arrived quickly and safely at their destinations are now forced to cross the border from Colombia to Panama on foot, and the Darién Gap is the only place to do it. This crossing was once considered too dangerous for all but the most intrepid adventurers and the Indigenous people who call it home. But these days, it’s become one of the world’s busiest migrant routes: in 2022, almost a quarter million people made the trip. It’s estimated that number will be even higher in 2023.
In the 4 hours from Panama City to the Darién, we met only one or two vehicles heading the other direction—we were, after all, heading to the end of the road. The vegetation grew thick and lush as we made our way south, the humidity encouraging a riotous growth of the kinds of tropical plants I had only ever seen in greenhouses and nurseries. Within minutes of getting off the air-conditioned bus in Lajas Blancas, I was already sweating—and it was only 9 am.
Lajas Blancas is a migration station located within the territory of the Emberá-Wounaan. It’s one of several locations where migrants disembark from the lanchas they’ve been traveling in—long motorized canoes—and are registered by Panamanian migration officials.
There are no roads in the Darién Gap, only rivers: people travel by lancha and along the riverbanks. Migrants pay guides, sometimes members of the local Indigenous communities, to help them travel along the waterways. However, this is part of what makes the crossing so dangerous. The part of the American continent where Panama meets Colombia is one of the rainiest places in the world, and flash flooding can turn the rivers deadly in an instant. Many migrants don’t know how to swim.
When we arrived at the station, I found it surprisingly quiet, despite the bustle of activity and long lines for money transfers and recharge their phones. But the relative absence of shouting and loud music quickly becomes understandable as it becomes clear what people have been through.
Many migrants have arrived injured, sick, and traumatized after a journey where they may have been robbed, assaulted, raped, or witness to the deaths of their fellow travelers. The main road through the station is populated by people resting or limping towards the medical tent, supported by their friends or family members. Some wait near the riverbank for loved ones they have lost track of along the way, hoping they’ll be on the next boat. Many will never arrive.
But for those who have survived the crossing, there are many tasks to attend to before the journey continues. Some need medical attention for injuries and illness—skin and digestive infections, open wounds, dehydration, debilitating blisters and other foot injuries. Others need to replace stolen items. Anything they need is available at the station—for a price. At one window, they can receive a money transfer through Western Union; at another, phone minutes or a hot meal.
I remember speaking to a group of young men who had just arrived at the station, who recounted their experiences in a breathless adrenalin-powered jumble. One was in his socks; his shoes had disappeared. Like many, they had been told they could make the crossing in a few days. We were able to do it quickly, not that quickly, but faster than some, they said, but we’re young and strong. There are children, pregnant women. And many people who can’t swim. They shook their heads in disbelief, remembering the water, the mud, the accidents. Their eyes were frantic, and they spoke in a rush, everyone at once. It was clear they had just experienced things that would alter their youthful bravado forever.
Migrants from all over the world pass through the Darién. There are Venezuelans, of course, and Haitians arriving from Chile and Brazil; Venezuelans, Ecuadorians and Colombians. But there are also people from farther afield—West and Central Africa, Eastern Europe, including Russia and Ukraine, southeast Asia and China. I stopped to chat in my increasingly rusty Kreyol with some of the Haitians, noting once again that many were from Gonaives or Aux Cayes, cities I know but not particularly well. I wondered why. I had conversations where people asked me questions in Portuguese and I tried to answer in Spanish, and I tried, unsuccesfully, to dredge up enough French to chat with a group of Congolese gentlemen, which they were very nice about. It didn’t escape me that all my bits and pieces of language are thanks to my own experiences as a migrant, and the generosity with which I have been received.
After taking care of their most immediate needs, migrants board buses that will take them directly to the Costa Rican border—coordinated by the Panamanian government but paid for by the migrants themselves. From there, an uncertain journey awaits them. Migration policy is ever-changing, and even the available information can be hard to understand. They have completed the most dangerous part of the journey, but the road ahead is by no means easy. They will still face the risk of detention, robbery, and assault as they travel through Central America and Mexico, not to mention the ever-present risk that, once they arrive at the US-Mexico border, they will not be allowed into the country they have travelled so far to reach.
But some of them will arrive at their destination. Some asylum claims will be accepted, and some will cross the border undetected. They’ll arrive in new cities, some will be reunited with their families, they’ll begin a new part of their life. Some, many, will find jobs, pay taxes, send money to their families. It may be difficult. It may not last. They may be deported, or decide that life in their new country is not what they hoped it would be. The joy of arrival may be tainted with bitter memories. Maybe they’ll return home, or seek out a new destination. Or maybe they won’t. Whatever happens, I hope it will be of their own choosing.
Annalee Giesbrecht is the Context Analyst and Advocacy and Communications Support Coordinator for MCC LACA. She visited the Darien Gap in December 2022.