Panama. Panama on Tuesday deported 29 Colombians with criminal records who entered the country through the inhospitable Darien jungle, applying for the first time an agreement on migration signed with the United States in July.
“We have the first flight of the agreement financed by the United States,” said the Panamanian Vice Minister of Security, Luis Felipe Icaza, accompanied by American officials, after the charter flight took off at dawn from the Albrook airport in the Panamanian capital with the 29 deportees bound for Bogotá.
Before boarding the Fokker 50, the group was lined up on the side of the runway and each was checked with metal detectors. The deportees, who were not carrying luggage, were handcuffed and had to slowly climb the stairs of the plane.
Icaza said that the next flight could depart “on Friday or Saturday” under the memorandum that Panama signed with the United States on July 1, the day that José Raúl Mulino took office as the new Panamanian president.
Through this agreement, Washington agreed to finance with six million dollars the deportation from the Central American country of migrants who cross the Darien, the inhospitable jungle located on the Colombian-Panamanian border.
“The memorandum covers anyone, not just criminals,” said Marlene Piñeiro, the U.S. Homeland Security attaché in Central America, who witnessed the deportation process along with other U.S. and Panamanian officials.
“In addition to charter flights, we are supporting with commercial flights” for the return of migrants to their countries of origin, he added.
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– 2024-08-23 12:36:17
