Over 300,000 migrants crossed Latin America’s Darien Gap in 2024, down 42%

Over 300,000 migrants crossed the Darien Gap into Panama in 2024, 42% fewer than the record number who made the perilous jungle crossing from South America a year earlier, Panama’s migration authorities told Reuters on Thursday.

PANAMA CITY — Over 300,000 migrants crossed the Darien Gap into Panama in 2024, 42% fewer than the record number who made the perilous jungle crossing from South America a year earlier, Panama’s migration authorities told Reuters on Thursday.

The dangerous Darien Gap connects Colombia with the Central American nation of Panama and increasing numbers of migrants were making the journey north to reach the United States.

Panamanian President Jose Raul Mulino has taken a harder stance on migration since taking office last July, including fencing parts of the Darien with barbed wire, imposing fines and using flights funded by the United States to deport migrants.

Officials with Panama’s National Migration Service told Reuters 302,203 migrants crossed the Darien last year, down 42% from the record 520,085 in 2023. Some 69% of migrants in 2024 were Venezuelans, they said.

Many Venezuelans have been fleeing a prolonged economic collapse in the once-prosperous South American oil-producing nation.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/latino/migrants-darien-gap-fewer-crossing-rcna186184

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