This content was published on February 18, 2023 – 1:06 AM February 18, 2023 – 1:06 AM
Panama City, February 17 (EFE), in which at least 39 people died and more than 20 were injured.
In a statement, the Judicial Authority reduced the number of deaths in the accident registered last Wednesday morning on a highway leading to the Gualaca Migration Reception Station (ERM) in Chiriquí province, to the latest point from 41 to 39. Irregular migrants land in Panama before they leave for Costa Rica on their journey to North America.
37 bodies were found at the scene of the accident, while a woman and a 7-year-old boy died in the hospitals where they were treated, according to official information, which reiterated that one of the deceased was the bus driver. the Panamanian Orlando Vigil. .
Prosecutors said they received staff from the Ecuadorian embassy in Panama “to coordinate the recognition process and the possible handover of the recovered bodies of Ecuadorian nationals” involved in the tragedy.
On the bus “traveled 66 migrants: 22 from Ecuador, 16 from Haiti, 11 from Venezuela, 6 from Brazil, 5 from Colombia, 2 from Cameroon, 2 from Cuba, 1 from Nigeria and 1 from Eritrea. A total of 20 minors were of legal age: 12 boys and 8 girls,” the government said on Thursday.
The number of Ecuadorians injured in the accident rose to eleven this Friday. In the latest report by the Ecuadorian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Human Mobility, Foreign Minister Juan Carlos Holguín stated that among the 11 Ecuadorians injured, four are in intensive care and their condition is “critical”.
Regarding the rest of the injured, Holguín explained that six are close to being released, including three young people and three minors.
Panama’s government said Thursday it was “working hard” to identify the deceased and injured, a task made more difficult by the “condition in which the bodies were left” and because at least eight survivors were “unconscious in hospitals and have lost their documents of identity, which have been scattered at the point of facts”.
In this sense, the Panamanian Prosecutor’s Office and the Institute of Forensic Medicine and Forensic Sciences announced that “in the event that it is not possible to establish the identity of the remains by other scientific tests, the necessary DNA tests will be ensured carried out in the Global Forensic Solutions Laboratories and Florida International University”.
This is thanks to the support of these institutions and the United States Embassy, they added.
Authorities continue to investigate the causes of the accident, the worst of its kind in the country’s history, in which the roofless bus was left wrecked and with the seats scattered on the ground, more than 450 kilometers from the city of Panama.
In 2022, 248,284 irregular travelers entered Panama through the jungle, an unprecedented number and 85.6% more than in 2021, compared to more than 37,000 so far this year. EFE
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