Assault, rape and death: stories of the dangerous journey made by migrants on foot through the jungle that separates Colombia from Panama

The stories are shocking. Bodies lying on the road. Smell of death that emanates from makeshift graves with leaves and branches. Rape of women. Shots River currents that carry mothers with their young children in their arms. People who are abandoned because they cannot take another step.

These are just some of the images that have been recorded in the retinas of hundreds of illegal migrants – mostly Haitians, but also Cubans, Venezuelans and a few Africans – crossing the so-called daily life. Darien plug, the jungle that separates Colombia and Panama.

And all this in the eyes of the authorities. Colombians observe illegal exits from the border and Panamanians receive survivors in an indigenous village and only enter them in a kind of register. But just that. They do not enter the jungle to rescue those who remain despite the pleas of their loved ones.

And after? Without any containment, these migrants continue their journey to the United States by a sort of free route, avoiding border posts and being victims of human traffickers throughout the region.

“I wouldn’t do it again”

TN.com.ar last Sunday published the story of Cuban migrant Luis Govin Medina before entering the Darien jungle from the last Colombian border town. And now, after more than a week of silence, this master baker from Pinar del Río reappeared on the Panamanian side.

Her voice doesn’t sound hopeful anymore. Govin Medina had promised to film his trip, but what he experienced in the jungle was a terrible experience. “I couldn’t,” he apologized. “What I experienced there, I do not wish it on anyone. It’s exasperating, it’s horrible ”. regular.

And he said, “I experienced it firsthand. You see a lot of them, from dead to rape. There were a lot of deaths. They fell from the hills, I saw rapes, robberies… ”.

Luis left Colombia on the advice of a coyote (human smuggler) who made him pay $ 300. For Cubans and Venezuelans the “pass” is more expensive than for Haitians who only have to pay 100.

“There were 14 of us. We crossed four big hills. Our guide was armed and it saved us. But in front of us was another group of 16 people and the coyote I didn’t have any weapons, ”he explained.

“In this group, there were four women. An armed group suddenly broke in, robbed them all and raped the four women. They were Cubans. We saw it all in the distance. Our guide fired and a shootout broke out. But there was nothing we could do, ”he said.

And he continued, “When we got there the girls were crying. One of them told me that four guys raped her. It was bloody. They were all crying ”.

But that was not all. The trip got worse. “I have seen dead children. I saw a group of eight Haitian mothers with their children in their arms trying to cross a mighty river. We crossed with a rope, but suddenly it broke. AND the current carried them downstream. We never saw them again“, he underlined.

And he added, “It’s infuriating.

Govin Medina spent four nights in the jungle. “You can’t sleep there. The tension was great. The stories are great. Some coyotes they leave you in the middle of the jungle ”.

“I saw a lot of corpses”

Aliuska Hernandez He is 28 years old and comes from Artemisa, in eastern Cuba. She crossed the Darien with a friend after living in Guyana for two years and crossing Brazil, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador and Colombia. All to get to Miami, where one of his uncles lives.

He has been traveling the region for the United States for four months. And crossing the Darien was “a difficult experience to forget,” he commented.

In the middle of the jungle, this computer science graduate was assaulted “by eight masked men with pistols and short machine guns.” There were 16 of us and a group of more than 50 were advancing, they took our money. And suddenly there was a shooting, ”he said.

“The other group went the other way and they were attacked again on the (so-called) Loma de la Muerte. There, they raped several women and killed a Haitian shot in the head because he said he had no money, ”he said.

And he continued: “A friend saw that a Dominican girl was raped in front of her husband. With a gun to his head ”.

Aliuska walked four and a half days through the jungle. “In Loma de la Muerte, we saw many corpses and bones that looked like people. And on the side of the road there was a lot of stench. There were places with a lot of bad smells and you could see that there was a body covered in weeds. You have felt the plague, ”he said.

The end of the road was in the indigenous Panamanian town of Bajo Chiquito. There, they were received by the Panamanian border guard who entered his name in a register and gave him a “safe conduct”. A week later, he’s already in Honduras and he wants to forget about Darien, but he can’t, he needs to tell someone about his experience.

“I did it because I don’t want to go back to Cuba. It’s hard, you have to have willpower. There are a lot of people who die during the trip. People were going up the hills. You had to crawl and hang on to the roots of plants. It’s a little complicated. I don’t wish it on anyone, ”he concluded.

Govin Medina, meanwhile, plans to continue his trip to Miami. If I would do it again? No. It was a very bad experience. They have to take action with it. There are deaths, thefts, rapes… “.