www.ecotvpanama.com By AFP
A transit is recorded from just over 900 Chinese a year ago to more than 10,800 in the last 100 days, according to data from the Panama authorities.
The Minister of Security of Panama, Juan Manuel Pino, warned this Friday about the increase in the number of Chinese migrants crossing the inhospitable Darien jungle on the way to the United States, amid a growing illegal migration along this route.
“It draws our attention this year greatly (that) the third nationality that passes through (Darién) is Chinese,” Pino told journalists during a tour in Puerto Obaldía, in the indigenous region of Guna Yala, in the Panamanian Caribbean.
According to official figures, during the first 11 days of the new year, more than 6,100 people have already passed through Darién, on the border between Panama and Colombia, mainly from Venezuela (2,368), Haiti (1,013) and China (812).
This increase is due to “countries that do not take the considerations and have open skies policies,” which allow Chinese migrants to arrive without a visa to those countries and then travel to the United States by crossing the Darien jungle, Pino said.
A transit is recorded from just over 900 Chinese a year ago to more than 10,800 in the last 100 days, according to data from the Panama authorities.
The jungle border between Colombia and Panama, 266 km long and 575,000 hectares in area, has become in recent years a corridor for migrants from South America trying to reach the United States and Canada.
It takes travelers between three and six days to cross the Darien, where they face natural dangers, but also criminal gangs.
In 2023, a record of more than 520,000 people crossed the Panamanian jungle. Of them, about 120,000 were minors.
Pino warned that the number of migrants through Darién is not going to decrease.
“The problems after the pandemic have been increasing and I am not going to tell you that migration is going to decrease because what I see to the south are more problems,” said Pino.
The head of Panamanian security, who announced new plans to increase surveillance on the Panamanian border, also believes that the situation of violence linked to drug trafficking that Ecuador faces can trigger migration from that country to the United States through Panama.
According to the National Immigration Service of Panama, more than half of the migrants who made this journey in 2023 were Venezuelans (328,650), followed by Ecuadorians (57,250), Haitians (46,422) and Chinese (25,565).
There are also Indians, Vietnamese, Afghans, Nepalese and citizens of African countries, such as Cameroonians and Angolans. There are people of all ages, even babies as young as a few weeks old, according to reports.
[Translated from Spanish to English]
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