The Attorney General’s Office reported that the public force found antipersonnel mines installed very close to one of the routes that thousands of migrants use daily to cross the Darien jungle to Panama.
In development of the Unified Command Post (PMU), which accompanied the Delegate Attorney for the Defense of Human Rights, Javier Sarmiento Olarte, on March 15, it was revealed that in a patrol carried out at the beginning of the month an explosive type camándula, buried on a road in the Polín sector, rural area of Acandí, Chocó, an obligatory step on one of the routes that migrants usually take to cross the border between Colombia and Panama on their way to the United States.
Faced with this situation, the representative of the Public Ministry asked the authorities present to articulate to determine as soon as possible if there are other mined sites in the Darién Gap and to launch operations to search and deactivate improvised explosive devices in order to avoid a tragedy.
The Attorney General’s Office also received complaints about a new type of illegal trafficking of migrants by sea between the township of Capurganá, Chocó, and the Panamanian town of Carreto, which is taking place at night, aboard speedboats whose transit is prohibited by law. the port captaincy and involves enormous risks for migrants.
Despite these dangers, the service is being offered as an easier and faster alternative to get to Panama, but with very high costs, as a kind of elite transit service.
The problem is even more worrying considering that, according to figures provided by the Urabá Police Command, the transit of migrants has increased by 401% between 2022 and 2023, registering 50,135 admissions between January and February of this year, compared to 10,006. who entered in the same months of last year.
In Necoclí the situation becomes more complex, since, according to information reported by the municipal mayor’s office, at least 300 of these migrants, among them children, the elderly and pregnant mothers, remain settled on the beaches looking for a way to complete the approximately 300 dollars per person currently required by those who operate transit between this town and the border with Panama, which has led to worsening situations of unsanitary conditions, insecurity, child prostitution, labor exploitation and micro-trafficking, among others, which the Attorney General’s Office has been denouncing and which so far they have not been duly addressed by the responsible entities.
Faced with these new problems, delegate Sarmiento undertook to expose these problems to the entities of the National Government to achieve prompt and effective responses.