The number of children crossing has also soared
According to Diana Romero, emergency specialist at UNICEF Panamá, one in five migrants crossing the Darién is a child – half of them under the age of five. Although there are no accurate figures, there are many reports of children dying during the trek. The number of unaccompanied children is of particular concern. In 2022, UNICEF assisted about 1,000 unaccompanied minors, but in 2023 that figure reached 3,300. Of those, 67% were teenagers, 21% children aged between 6 and 12, and of the rest, 10% are babies, Romero said. Often, younger children get separated from their relatives during the trek only managing to reunite later on. According to Francisco Pulido, Plan International´s director of humanitarian action and stabilisation in Colombia, teenagers tend to travel in friend groups – often motivated by misinformation shared on social media. In other cases, the entire family cannot afford to continue the trek so parents leave their children in camps, hoping to send them money to follow on later.
Most of the medical cases that aid organisations come across and treat are related to the dangers of the jungle itself, or due to the lack of access to clean water and food en route. There’s no data available, but humanitarian groups say there has also been a rising number of migrants travelling with pre-existing chronic conditions – psychiatric disorders, diabetes, hypertension, or asthma. These people often require emergency assistance because their medications get lost or stolen.
Entrevistamos a Ibon Zugasti: "La vida de monje es súper importante"
Con un lenguaje original y el reality por bandera, Ibon Zugasti se ha convertido en uno de los ciclistas más conocidos de nuestro país.
Su canal de YouTube estrena un nuevo vídeo cada semana y ya suma más de 270.000 seguidores. Pero el fenómeno Zugasti ha saltado todas las banderas y sus frases y mensajes los utilizan desde ciclistas profesionales hasta políticos. Aunque no es muy dado a las entrevistas, nos dio la oportunidad de hablar con él y conocerle mejor.
The Darién Gap migration crisis in six graphs, and one map
A record 520,000 migrants crossed the treacherous jungle corridor connecting Colombia and Panamá – known as the Darién Gap – in 2023. Less than a decade ago, that figure was only a few thousand, but the number has been doubling annually in recent years, and a further surge is expected in 2024.
“2023 has broken all records. It has been a huge, terrible maelstrom,” Elías Cornejo, who runs Fe y Alegría, an NGO promoting education and social advancement for migrants in Panamá, told The New Humanitarian. “And we expect a new increase [in 2024].”
Services like Fe y Alegría – on both sides of the Colombia-Panama border – are becoming engulfed as the needs of vast numbers of vulnerable people traversing dangerous territory overwhelm local communities and aid groups trying to help.
The migrants take the 97-kilometre jungle trek – over steep and muddy terrain and along fast-flowing rivers – because it is the only overland route from South America into Central America. Once in Panamá, where government reception centres are overrun, most hope to head northwards through Mexico to the southern US border, but these journeys are also full of risks.
Read more: The challenges facing the humanitarian response
The few humanitarian agencies and organisations operating on the ground in and around the Darién Gap are struggling to meet the soaring needs of those crossing, not least because of the insecurity in the region.
Diana Romero, emergency specialist at UNICEF Panamá, told The New Humanitarian that coming up with the right emergency response hasn't been easy in a high-income country that was unprepared to deal with such needs. “Panama had not faced situations of disasters or crises, so they didn´t have the implementation partners needed,” she said. “In 2019, there were no local humanitarian teams, because there never was a demand for that. There were no specialists in WASH, gender, or nutrition.”
¿Puedo salir a pedalear estando resfriado?
Las primeras etapas tuvisteis algunos problemas mecánicos ¿os llegaron a condicionar la carrera o no creéis que hayan influido?
Oliver: Las averías a todos nos afectan. El top 20 está muy apretado, y el haber perdido 5 minutos entre pinchazos, salidas de cadena, problemas con el cassette. Igual iríamos más holgados porque justo estamos en la posición 20 ahora mismo.
Ibon: Sin duda nos ha influido. Sobre todo en la etapa prólogo fue una pena porque yo a pesar de la edad me considero bastante explosivo, una crono de 50 minutos no es corta y tenía ganas de esa contrarreloj. Sin duda la avería del eje nos condicionó muchísimo. Con la desconcentración pierdes un minuto y ese tiempo es la diferencia entre el 18 o el 24.
Psicológicamente afecta mucho. Para mi es la carrera más importante del año, llegas con mucho trabajo acumulado y en el kilómetro 5 (de la etapa 1) pinchas y ves que te quedas el último. Reparas, sigues, ves que sigues perdiendo aire, vuelves a parar y te vuelves a quedar el último. Remontas, le dimos la vuelta a todo e íbamos entre las 20 mejores parejas y entonces se me rompió el núcleo. En ese momento no me lo creía. Para mí nos ha condicionado muchísimo y nos ha hecho gastar más de la cuenta tanto física como psicológicamente. Te hace perder la confianza.
En cuanto a material ¿habéis hecho algún cambio importante en la configuración o el montaje de vuestras mountain bikes para la Cape Epic, con respecto a otras carreras?
Oliver: No, son bicicletas casi de catálogo. Lo único es que intentamos echar más líquido (tubeless) de la cuenta para evitar pinchazos y que vamos con un poco más de presión de lo habitual.