2023-09-05 05:14:40
The Panamanian authorities apprehended two Colombian citizens when they were transporting 18 migrants of Chinese nationality in a boat in the waters of the Caribbean coast of the Central American country, near the border with Colombia, official sources reported Monday.
(We recommend reading: 5 ‘coyotes’ dedicated to migrant smuggling from Ecuador are sentenced: that’s how they operated).
Agents of the National Migration Service (Senafront) intercepted the boat 10 nautical miles from the community of Guayabo de Darién, the Panamanian province that more than 330,000 migrants have arrived at this year, after crossing the dangerous jungle of the same name on the border with Colombia. They travel irregularly to North America, in one of the worst migration crises the continent has experienced.
The two Colombian citizens were referred to the competent authorities accused of the crime of smuggling of migrants, in this case 18 Chinese nationals, an official source confirmed to EFE.
Panama, a country that abolished the Army in 1990 after the US invasion to capture the dictator Manuel Antonio Noriega (1934-2017), has said that this week it will announce new security measures in Darién, where it receives migrants at stations in those who take their biometric data and offer them healthcare and food.
The Panamanian authorities accuse the countries of South America, especially neighboring Colombia, of turning their backs on the migration problem, in whose management the Central American country has invested nearly 70 million dollars in recent years, according to data officers.
(You might be interested in: The million-dollar business of moving irregular migrants that no authority seems to see).
Panama and Costa Rica announced last Friday that they will have a “single voice” before the international community to promote their idea of a “better administration” of migratory flows in order to avoid peaks like those currently registered in the Darién with more than 5,000 travelers arriving per day.
The growing torrent of migrants has overwhelmed the capacities of humanitarian organizations at the border points both in Panama and neighboring Costa Rica, as well as in the rest of Central America, from where around 1,500 Central Americans also leave every day for the United States, as stated Iván Aguilar, the humanitarian and resilience manager of the global NGO Oxfam in the region, told EFE.
EFE
Read more news…
#Colombian #coyotes #captured #Panama #transporting #Chinese #migrants #Latin #America #International