The Darién jungle, on the border between Colombia and Panama, is suffering “irreversible” environmental damage due to the record number of migrants crossing it towards the United States, a Panamanian minister said on Saturday.
“The irreversible environmental damage will take many years for this to return to normal. There is damage and every week, every day, it is worse,” Panama’s Security Minister, Juan Manuel Pino, told the press on a visit to the Darién with his Costa Rican counterpart, Mario Zamora.
The natural border, 266 km long and 575,000 hectares in area, became an obligatory corridor for thousands of migrants who, from South America, try to reach the United States without a visa through Central America and Mexico.
Some 390,000 migrants have entered Panama through this jungle so far this year, much more than in all of 2022, when there were 248,000, according to official Panamanian data.
“We have to be very careful with this, because this is going to affect future generations, it is going to affect our indigenous communities, which are impacted by the trafficking of these people,” added Pino.
Migrants leave a trail of garbage in the jungle: boots, socks, plastic bottles, underpants, bras, glasses, toothbrushes and diapers. A lot of waste also covers the river banks, AFP journalists observed.
“We were very impressed by the deterioration of natural conditions due to the massive passage of people, that is, a scenario that is not designed for this type of human use and that, from a natural point of view, has been severely affected,” Zamora said.
The officials visited the villages of Bajo Chiquito and Canaán Membrillo, where thousands of migrants arrive every day. There they board canoes and sail to the Lajas Blancas shelter, where they board buses that take them to the border with Costa Rica to continue their journey to North America.
The ministers announced that the president of Costa Rica, Rodrigo Chaves, will visit Darién on October 7 with his Panamanian counterpart, Laurentino Cortizo, to coordinate joint actions.
In his speech before the UN General Assembly on Tuesday, Cortizo stressed that the massive passage of migrants is “unsustainable.”
The majority are Venezuelans, but also Ecuadorians, Haitians, Chinese, Vietnamese, Afghans and African countries.
Migrants also run great risks because criminal gangs operate that rob, kidnap and rape.
