This content was published on March 9, 2023 – 23:26
minutes
(AFP)
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) delivered this Thursday to Panama a hundred niches to bury irregular migrants who die on their journey through the inhospitable jungle of Darién, on the border with Colombia.
Amid old tombs and crosses devastated by time, the niches were built in the municipal cemetery of the village of El Real de Santa María, some 300 kilometers southeast of Panama City.
The new cemetery has 50 tombs on each side and near it chickens peck at the ground, while a lizard basks in the sun on the stone tombstones and a snake lies dead on the grass.
The cement niches were handed over by the ICRC to the Panamanian authorities, overwhelmed by the large number of migrants entering this jungle border from Colombia in search of the American dream.
“We are delivering a module of 100 niches for the individual burial of the human remains of migrants who may have died along the Darién route,” Marisela Silva Chau, head of the ICRC’s Regional Delegation, told AFP.
The objective is to bury in the same enclosure the bodies or remains of migrants that are not claimed by their families, and that overflow the morgues in the area.
The corpses will be buried individually in plastic bags, after taking data for their identification. If they are claimed, after the relevant comparisons, they will be delivered to their families.
“The objective is to comply with international standards and treat the deceased with dignity and respect,” José Vicente Pachar, director of the Institute of Legal Medicine and Forensic Sciences, dependent on the Panamanian Prosecutor’s Office, told AFP.
– Death toll uncertain –
The dangerous jungle of the Darien has become a corridor for irregular migration from South America to the United States through Central America.
This 266 km-long, 575,000-hectare natural border is fraught with dangers such as wild animals, rushing rivers, and criminal groups.
Despite the risks, so far this year more than 58,000 people have made this journey, according to data from the Panamanian government. In 2022, there was a record 248,000 migrants.
They are mostly Haitians, Venezuelans and Ecuadorians, although there are also Asians, mainly from China and India, and Africans, especially from Cameroon and Somalia.
Some die in the jungle, although the number is uncertain since the authorities do not know the real figure due to the inaccessibility of the land, the lack of complaints and the abandonment of the bodies, which sometimes end up being eaten by animals.
“Last year we recorded 52 bodies,” but the number “must be much higher,” says Pachar.
“There is uncertainty about the exact number of migrants who die along the route, because it all depends on the information that can come from the migrants who manage to survive,” Chau says.
– “You have to admire them” –
The inhabitants of El Real de Santa María make their living mainly from subsistence agriculture.
The town combines one-story, wooden or concrete houses, some with striking colors. The streets are made of stone and earth, although there are some paved.
Community leader Pedro Pablo Mendivil says that the residents approved the proposal of the Red Cross to install the niches in the town’s cemetery.
However, at first several neighbors were opposed for fear that it would be filled with foreigners.
“There are so many barbarities that happen along the way that these people, these migrants must be admired, and the only way we can support them” is that those who die “can rest in peace,” Mendivil told AFP .
“How difficult for people who don’t get to fulfill their dream after so much work, after having sacrificed their family for a better life,” adds the 67-year-old retiree.
– ‘Everyone’s house’ –
Real de Santa María is reached by navigating the mighty Tuira River from Yaviza, the town where the Pan-American route stops.
This road that connects Alaska, Canada, the United States, Mexico and Central America is interrupted in Panama by the so-called Darién Gap. It then continues from Colombia to the southern tip of the continent.
Migrants must be buried “as dignified people who deserve a good burial,” says parish priest Claudio Guerrero.
“Several have complained [por los nichos para extranjeros], but they are going to complain for the taste, it is a cemetery and all the people who die are there. That is everyone’s house,” says Alfonso Medina, a 67-year-old neighbor next to him.
