51 irregular migrants, Venezuelans and Ecuadorians, 14 of them minors, were abandoned on a beach in Panama.
A group of South American migrants intercepted by Panamanian authorities, August 26, 2023.
The migrants, 46 nationals from Venezuela and five from Ecuador, were traveling in a speedboat through the Caribbean Sea of Panama , when they were abandoned by human traffickers, alerted the Panamanian authorities.
The incident occurred on August 26, after a National Border Service (Senafront) patrol in a border town with Colombia sighted the vessel.
Captain Carlos Reyes, an executive of the Puerto Obaldía Third Battalion of the National Border Service (Senafront), explained that the police officers made “stop signals” to the boat, but it “ran away, running aground on a beach.”
“The citizens who operated that boat managed to get into the jungle ,” Reyes said. At the moment, the authorities are looking for them, since they are suspected of the crime of smuggling of migrants.
According to official information, 10 of the abandoned migrants received medical attention because they suffered “light injuries” when the boat ran aground on the beach, located in the Tubualá district.
Panama is the gateway to Central America, through which thousands of travelers from the south of the continent are transiting and heading to the United States, in an unprecedented migratory and humanitarian crisis in the region.
These are people from countries all over the world, although in recent years they are mostly Venezuelan, followed by Haitians and Ecuadorians.
So far this year, more than 308,000 migrants have arrived in Panama, after crossing the dangerous jungle of Darién, on the border with Colombia, 20% of them minors.
Due to the migration crisis, the Panamanian authorities are considering drastic measures to stop the flow of travelers, such as closing the border with Colombia.
