PANAMA MIGRATION CRISIS
Panama City, April 30th (EFE) .- Almost 19,000 irregular migrants traveling to North America have arrived in Panama so far this year after crossing the dangerous jungle of Darién, the border with Colombia, with Venezuelans the are the predominant nationalities, the Panamanian government confirmed this Saturday.
“So far, about 19,000 migrants have entered Panama. We continue with a majority of irregular migrants of Venezuelan nationality, the Haitian being the second and the Cuban being the third,” said National Migration Service (SNM) Director Samira Gozaine in a video released by the Ministry of Public Security (MinSeg).
According to official data from the SNM, 11,487 irregular migrants crossed the Darién in the first four months of last year, of which only 15 were Venezuelans, 6,803 were Haitians and 1,885 were Cubans.
The statistics for 2022 published by the SNM show the migratory flows up to last March: a total of 13,425 irregular migrants crossed the Darién, of which 4,257 from Venezuela, 1,589 from Haiti, 1,164 from Senegal and 1,065 from Cuba, the dominant nationalities in this group.
One of the reasons that could explain the prevalence of Venezuelans is the employment crisis due to the pandemic, which is pushing many of them who were staying in third countries to go to the United States, where temporary immigration status has been approved for this nationality, he explained. The head of the International Organization for Migration (IOM) mission in Panama, Santiago Paz, told Efe.
The world organization also said that a growing number of Venezuelans come directly from Venezuela, from where more than 6 million people have fled in recent years fleeing the general crisis that is devastating the country.
“MONITORIAL” NUMBER OF MIGRANTS SO FAR THIS YEAR
So far in 2022, “a manageable number” of irregular migrants have entered Panama via the border with Colombia, Gozaine said this Saturday, saying that the authorities are optimistic that this rate “will not change over the years”.
More than 133,000 migrants crossed the Darién last year, a historic number more or less the same as for the entire previous decade.
Official figures from Panama show that migrant arrivals skyrocketed between June and October 2021, with a total of 105,821 over those 5 months.
The Darién is one of the most dangerous migration routes in the world, home to wild animals and criminal groups. For years it has been crossed by migrants from all over the world traveling to North America.
Since the Cuban migrant crisis of 2015-2016, Panama has received these irregular travelers in Migrant Reception Units (ERM) installed on its southern (Colombia) and northern (Costa Rica) borders, where it receives migrants’ biometrics and medical supplies provides and groceries, a program that guzzles millions of dollars a year, the government said.
This Saturday, the Minister of Security Juan Pino said that next week the installation of a new ERM in San Vicente (Darién) with a capacity of almost 500 people will begin.