Cortizo dubbed it the “Jungle of Death” in a brief meeting with the press before a binational meeting to agree on how to deal with the flow of migrants passing through the jungle area on the border with Colombia travel through which they traveled here year 406 thousand people, including children.
Chaves, for his part, described it as a green jungle, a hell for people in difficult conditions.
Both leaders also agreed to extend this to the presidents of the countries of origin, transit and destination to visit the Darién and learn first-hand about the reality of those who have chosen to leave their countries and to take the route to the United States and Canada. .
“In all these years, and especially this one, we have seen robberies, rapes, dead families and drowned children,” Cortizo described. It was a real way of the cross, he said.
You are deceived that it is a one-way trip of a few days. No, it is a journey of up to eight days for those who manage to arrive, because there are even suicides, lamented the Panamanian president.
For President Chaves, the aim of the binational meeting is to help this huge group of people without affecting the populations of transit countries. We must bring about an agreement between the countries involved.
In his opinion, it is necessary to know how many and what kind of people the recipient countries will receive. Colombia, which represents the entry bridge, can help us in the pre-selection, suggested Chaves, arguing that we want to know who will have a certain success in entering through the migration policies of these countries that help in the selection, he stressed.
To have these people requires investments and joint political decisions from Canada to Ecuador, otherwise there will be great disorganization, chaos and a Dantesque tragedy, because with the arrival in Central America begins another part of the journey, he noted.
Chaves therefore considered that it was necessary to call for unity from the international community and that it was time to act collectively and in a coordinated manner, investing resources proportionately depending on the impact of each country in this situation.
A vision without action is a hallucination, and we need to agree on how we do it, he stressed.
Before this meeting, Cortizo and Chaves flew over several points in this area and were able to closely observe the arrival of families and their children in canoes to continue their northern route from Panama.
npg/alb