In the last two months, teams from Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) have recorded an exponential increase in the number of assaults, indicating the worsening of an already dire situation. MSF urges Panamanian authorities to immediately strengthen measures to protect migrants.
The Darién has become a trafficking and commerce route through which thousands of migrants pass each year to get to North America. Last year, the Panamanian government registered more than half a million people crossing the Darién, an unprecedented number.
Increasing rates of violence
Figures recorded by MSF teams in the region in recent weeks show an accelerating increase in cases of sexual violence against mainly (but not only) migrant women, as well as an increase in violence, brutality, and cruelty against groups of migrants.
In just one week in February, MSF teams treated 113 people—including nine children—after they were sexually assaulted by armed groups operating in the Darién. That’s close to the total number of people treated during the whole of January—120. These figures are double the monthly average treated in 2023, when 676 people were treated during the whole year.
Migrants tell us they witnessed the murders of those who refused to comply with the orders of armed groups, who take advantage of people’s vulnerability to rob them of all their belongings and abuse them.
“This increase in the number of attacks is unimaginable,” said Luis Eguiluz, MSF’s head of mission in Panama and Colombia. “We had already treated very high numbers of people in December and January, and there was talk of occasional deaths. But now, in these latest attacks, the level of brutality is extreme: armed men are detaining larger and larger groups of migrants, between 100 and 400 people, threatening them, assaulting them, systematically sexually abusing women, in front of other migrants and even in front of their families and children. In a recent episode, several migrants told us how those who refused to cooperate were shot dead.”
Action must be taken now
"These outrageous crimes are on the rise and, what’s worse, nobody seems to care,” said Eguiluz. “We don’t see much change in the impunity with which the attackers operate ... We see a complete lack of action to address the situation or help with its consequences.”
MSF has repeatedly condemned the lack of protection for migrants in the Darién. As they emerge from the forest in Panama, many seek care from MSF teams specialized in treating sexual violence as a medical emergency.
“We renew our call to the Panamanian authorities to redouble their efforts to protect the most vulnerable people in their territory, especially in the Darién. Many of them are families, women and children in desperate situations. It is unacceptable that this continues to happen.”
Since April 2021, MSF has been providing medical and psychological services to people in transit who arrive in Panama through the Darién Gap. Teams are currently present in the community of Bajo Chiquito and at the migrant reception center in Lajas Blancas.
