At least 39 people, most of them undocumented US-bound migrants who survived a perilous jungle crossing, died in a bus crash in Panama early on Wednesday, officials said in a statement.
Panama’s National Migration Service said the injured, including children, were being treated at hospitals and clinics, without saying how many there were.
The bus had 66 passengers when it plunged down a ravine and hit a minibus about 400km west of Panama City, the statement said.
Photo: EPA-EFE
The bus was transporting migrants who had crossed the Darien Gap — an inhospitable jungle area bordering Colombia — and were moving west toward Costa Rica from where they aimed to continue their journey through Central America and Mexico, and ultimately to the US.
The bus was on its way to a hostel near the Costa Rican border, where the passengers were to have rested before continuing their journey.
Local media said the crash happened as the driver was turning the bus around after missing the hostel, and went over a bend to plunge down a ravine and hit a minibus.
“We saw it coming and dived under the seats, the driver and myself, and because of that nothing happened to us,” Edgar Guerra, one of the two people inside the minibus, told local media.
Panamanian President Laurentino Cortizo wrote on Twitter of his “great sadness” at learning of the accident.
“This is regrettable news for Panama and the region,” he said, extending his government’s condolences to the next of kin. “Government teams work hard on the ground, providing medical assistance to survivors of this tragedy.”
Thousands of migrants arriving via Colombia risk their lives every year beating a path through the thick, swampy Darien Gap, a roadless jungle area replete with wild animals, dangerous rivers and criminal gangs.
At least 60 migrants died crossing the Darien Gap last year, up from 50 in 2021, Panamanian Institute of Legal Medicine and Forensic Sciences director-general Jose Vicente Pachar said.
The impenetrable topography has meant that plans to build a missing stretch of the Pan-American Highway through the Darien Gap have never been realized.
Despite the dangers, the number of irregular migrants arriving in Panama en route to the US nearly doubled last year to a record 248,000, the immigration authority reported on Jan. 1.
More than half were Venezuelan, the rest included Ecuadorans, Haitians and Cubans, as well as people from Africa and Asia.
The Panamanian government, in collaboration with UN agencies and aid organizations, has set up camps to provide humanitarian assistance to the never-ending migrant arrivals.
Migrant buses to Paso Canoas usually travel at night when there is less traffic and conditions are cooler, Panamanian Director of Migration Samira Gozaine said in a television interview.
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