Rather than the Mediterranean, African migrants face the jungle in America

A nasty scar on his leg, Ahmed Kabeer limps. He fled Sudan, torture, crossed an ocean. But there, in its ascent from America, rises another hell: the jungle that separates Colombia from Panama.

At 34, he embarked on another odyssey than that of migrants rallying Europe via the Mediterranean. He left the war and misery behind him, headed west, hoping to one day reach the United States. “There is a road” through Latin America, cowardly Ahmed Kabeer.

With him, 22 men and women, from the other side of the planet, merge among hundreds of Cubans and Haitians, just as desperate.

Almost none speak Spanish. Some master Portuguese. They share the same anxiety.

After being blocked by the Covid-19 pandemic, they will face the Darien stopper, 266 km of jungle, on foot. Ahmed Kabeer will risk it by limping.

Some 700 migrants survived for several weeks in a makeshift encampment on Necocli beach, while waiting for the border to reopen.

How did this Sudanese get there? “I discovered that it was not complicated to get a visa for Brazil,” he told AFP.

Then passed through Peru and Ecuador, he now intends to go up Central America. Without a visa it is possible, provided you have the money: the borders are porous, the bribes easy, he says.

– Interminable flight –

Ahmed Kabeer began his journey after the start of the conflict in Sudan in 2003. His mother and uncle were murdered.

His flight took him to several African countries, then to the Middle East. But he was expelled from Israel in 2018.

Sent back to his country, he was arrested and tortured, he said, because of his ethnicity. A deep scar stretches across his left calf. Refugee in Egypt, he opened a small business. But he is attacked.

Desperate, he took a flight to Sao Paulo, Brazil last year on a tourist visa. Since then, he has traveled some 5,000 km, in search of “a safe place where English is spoken (…) like the United States or Canada”.

The journey to Mexico takes seven to ten weeks. The probability of being the victim of “physical and psychological violence is considerable during this trip, especially between Colombia and Panama”, specifies a spokesperson for the International Organization for Migration (IOM).

The Sudanese is at the gates of this ordeal. Lanterns, batteries and machetes are essential. The illegal crossing of the Darien is done at night, takes almost a week.

Besides swamps and snakes, the jungle is riddled with narco-traffickers who transport cocaine through there.

“It is not a 100% safe road,” admits Ahmed Kabeer.

The paths of exile led Karifala Fofana to the tent adjacent to his in Necocli. “In Africa, there are a lot of problems (…) no work, a lot of corruption (…) even if you are smart, if you are not from a rich family (…) you es fucked up “, laments this 20-year-old Guinean, before venturing into the Darien.

Between January and October 2020, Panama intercepted 287 illegal migrants from various African countries, transferred them to reception centers, before they crossed into Costa Rica. The year before, they were 5,000. The pandemic has reduced the flow.

– No good road –

Mohammed Al-Gaadi has also given up crossing the Mediterranean, where more than 20,000 migrants have drowned in the past seven years, according to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).

Aged 50, this driver has fled the war-torn Yemen since 2014. “A lot of those who go to Europe have no job,” he explains.

Wanting to reach the United States, he crossed the Red Sea by ferry to Djibouti in 2017, then to Sao Paulo. “There is no good and safe road.”

He was a street vendor for three years in Ecuador, sending money to his wife and five children back home, saving money to continue his trip.

But “here we spend and do not work”, he laments.

Karifala Fofana, who worked for a few months in Brazil, “spent almost $ 10,000 to get there.”

On January 30, Panama reopened its borders. Five days later, they abandoned their camp for the jungle, guided by “coyotes” for 2,000 to 3,000 dollars.

AFP has found Ahmed Kabeer on the Panamanian side. Three of his companions fell into a ravine in the Darien. Their bodies remained in hell.

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