Panama slams Colombia for lack of action on migrant influx through Darien

The head of Panama's migration agency has lashed out at Colombia, slamming its southern neighbour for failure to help control the flow of mostly US-bound migrants passing through the dangerous Darien Gap amid a surge of people travelling north.

On Friday, Samira Gozaine, head of Panama's national migration service, lamented the failure to reach an agreement with Colombia to promote legal transit of the up to 2,800 migrants a day that unlawfully cross their shared border.

"For Panama, this is a crisis, but unfortunately with Colombia, we have not been able to reach any kind of understanding," Gozaine said in a statement.

She said the situation has only gotten worse and called out Colombian officials for failing to share information with Panamanian counterparts.

Colombia's government did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Major transit point

The dense tropical jungle of the 97-kilometre Darien Gap links Panama and Colombia, covering a missing section on the Pan-American highway, which stretches from Alaska to Argentina.

It has become a major transit point for throngs of migrants and asylum seekers searching for a better life in the United States.

Late last month, Panama's security ministry released data showing that the number of individual crossings of the Darien Gap reached an all-time high of nearly 250,000 in the first seven months of the year.

That already surpasses the number of crossings for all of 2022.

In the last few days, between 2,600 and 2,800 people have crossed daily through the jungle, Gozaine said.

Panamanian officials have also had to deport many Colombian nationals, Gozaine said, most having criminal records.

"The only thing that Panama can do is manage the flow and permit (migrants) to keep travelling north and try to minimise the damage to Panama," she said.