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January 2, 2025 – 20:12
Some 302,000 migrants, mostly Venezuelans, will cross the Panamanian Darien jungle in 2024 on their way to the United States, 41% less than the previous year, the president of Panama, José Raúl Mulino, announced this Thursday.
This decrease occurs less than three weeks before Donald Trump takes office as president of the United States, and has promised mass deportations.
“We have achieved a 41% reduction in the flow of immigrants crossing the Darién jungle,” on the border with Colombia, Mulino said in an opening speech to the session of the Panamanian Congress.
According to figures from the National Immigration Service, in 2024 302,203 people crossed the Darién, compared to 520,085 in 2023.
The Panamanian jungle has become a corridor for migrants who, from South America, try to reach the United States. The majority are Venezuelans, although there are also Colombians, Ecuadorians, Chinese and Haitians, among others.
On that journey, they face dangers such as rushing rivers, wild animals and criminal groups.
“Yes, there are fewer people, but there are more girls and boys, women and people with disabilities, we could evolve to a scenario of less volume but more vulnerability,” warned José Félix Rodríguez, a person in charge of the International Federation of the Red Cross in the Americas.
Rodríguez added that the decrease can be attributed to changes “in asylum and reception policies” and “measures to regulate migratory flows” in different countries, but warned that restrictive policies “do not usually stop migration.”
The Panamanian government attributes the decline to the closure of some trails in the jungle and to help from Washington, which finances migrant repatriation flights through an agreement signed in July.
With this program, Panama has deported more than 1,500 migrants on a quarantine of flights to Colombia, Ecuador and India.
However, this measure does not include Venezuelans, whom Panama allows to continue to the United States since Caracas does not allow the arrival of flights from the Central American country.
There is a “logistical problem with Venezuela, but its migrants are advancing towards the north of Central America accordingly and of course respecting all their human rights,” Mulino said.
The Panamanian president stated on December 19 that in 2024 at least 55 migrants died while passing through Darién.
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