NICANOR, Panama (AP) — Panama launched a security operation along its shared border with Colombia on Friday to combat criminal gangs and migrant smugglers involved in record-breaking migration through the dangerous Darién Gap.
Security officials said the “Shield” campaign was part of an agreement reached in April with the governments of Colombia and the United States to stop the flow of migrants through the jungle-covered mountains along the border.
At a naval airfield in the eastern pandemic-hit province of Darien on Friday, border police officers armed with rifles and dressed in camouflage clothing conducted exercises on the tarmac in front of helicopters donated by the US government.
Panama will deploy around 1,200 immigration officers, border police and naval aviation personnel for the operation, which it says will be carried out by air, land and sea. The target is not the hundreds of migrants who cross the dense jungle every day, but the organized criminal groups that hunt and profit from them on both sides of the border.
“This is an action by the Panamanian government against criminals who make a fortune from human suffering,” said Security Minister Juan Manuel Pino. The campaign is the first visible example of the efforts promised by the three governments.
He said the U.S. is in the process of replacing six of the Panamanian helicopters with eight new ones.
In recent years, the roadless Darién Gap between Colombia and Panama has become a major and increasingly established migration route for migrants from outside the continent seeking to enter the United States. Its location on the narrow isthmus makes it an obvious starting point to try to control migration flows, but its remoteness and lawlessness have long made doing so a challenge.
On Sunday, Panamanian border police encountered nine people suspected of robbing migrants. Three of them were killed in a shootout by police.
Oriel Ortega, director of the border police, said on Friday that the dominant criminal group in Darién is Colombia’s Gulf Clan. The gang terrorized large parts of northern Colombia to gain control of the main cocaine smuggling routes through dense jungles in the north to Central America and the United States. It also transports weapons and migrants.
Smaller gangs are also active along the border between Colombia and Panama.
The number of migrants encountered at the U.S. southern border has dropped significantly since coronavirus-related restrictions on applying for asylum at the border were lifted and replaced by expanded legal pathways and tougher penalties for those attempting to enter illegally.
Pino, Panama’s security minister, said control of the border with Colombia was no longer just an immigration problem but a matter of national security.
“Today it is easier to smuggle with one person than with a kilo of drugs,” said Pino.
Authorities rejected any suggestion of closing or militarizing the border. Pino confirmed close coordination with the United States, but said the operation would be carried out exclusively by Panamanian personnel.
“Our country is neither a migration destination nor does it lead to emigration, but its geographical location makes it an obligatory route for this phenomenon,” said Pino.
He pointed out that 663,000 people have crossed the Darién River since 2009, most of them in the last few years alone.
Last year, nearly 250,000 people crossed the border, almost double the number of 2021 (133,000) and a new record. The increase is mainly due to Venezuelans, who made up about 60% of migrants crossing the border last year.
In April, the United Nations warned that the unprecedented number of border crossings at the beginning of the year suggested that around 400,000 migrants could cross the Darién River this year. According to government figures, nearly 170,000 migrants crossed the Darién River in the first four months of the year, five times as many as in the same period last year.
In addition to the additional labor, Panama is planning a promotional campaign to spread the message that Darién should not be an option for migrants.
Pino noted that about 60% of the people crossing Darien this year were children.
Samira Gozaine, head of Panama’s immigration agency, said smugglers lure migrants onto the route with false promises, saying the crossing of steep mountains and raging rivers will take just two days, rather than a week or more.
So far this year, Panamanian authorities have reported the recovery of at least 24 bodies suspected of being migrants and received reports of around 40 migrants missing.
